Fast CCD camera for x-ray photon correlation spectroscopy and time-resolved x-ray scattering and imaging

A new, fast x-ray detector system is presented for high-throughput, high-sensitivity, time-resolved, x-ray scattering and imaging experiments, most especially x-ray photon correlation spectroscopy (XPCS). After a review of the architectures of different CCD chips and a critical examination of their suitability for use in a fast x-ray detector, the new detector hardware is described. In brief, its principal component is an inexpensive, commercial camera-the SMD1M60-originally designed for optical applications, and modified for use as a direct-illumination x-ray detector. The remainder of the system consists of two Coreco Imaging PC-DIG frame grabber boards, located inside a Dell Power-edge 6400 server. Each frame grabber sits on its own PCI bus and handles data from 2 of the CCD's 4 taps. The SMD1M60 is based on a fast, frame-transfer, 4-tap CCD chip, read out at12-bit resolution at frame rates of up to 62 Hz for full frame readout and up to 500 Hz for one-sixteenth frame readout. Experiments to characterize the camera's suitability for XPCS and small-angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) are presented. These experiments show that single photon events are readily identified, and localized to within a pixel index or so. This is a sufficiently fine spatial resolution to maintain the speckle contrast at an acceptable value for XPCS measurements. The detective quantum efficiency of the SMD1M60 is 49% for directly-detected 6.3 keV x rays. The effects of data acquisition strategies that permit near-real-time data compression are also determined and discussed. Overall, the SMD1M60 detector system represents a major improvement in the technology for time-resolved x-ray experiments, that require an area detector with time-resolutions in few-milliseconds-to-few-seconds range, and it should have wide applications, extending beyond XPCS. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.