Characterisation of edgeless technologies for pixellated and strip silicon detectors with a micro-focused X-ray beam

Reduced edge or "edgeless" detector design offers seamless tileability of sensors for a wide range of applications from particle physics to synchrotron and free election laser (FEL) facilities and medical imaging. Combined with through-silicon-via (TSV) technology, this would allow reduced material trackers for particle physics and an increase in the active area for synchrotron and FEL pixel detector systems. In order to quantify the performance of different edgeless fabrication methods, 2 edgeless detectors were characterized at the Diamond Light Source using an 11 μm FWHM 15 keV micro-focused X-ray beam. The devices under test were: a 150 μm thick silicon active edge pixel sensor fabricated at VTT and bump-bonded to a Medipix2 ROIC; and a 300 μm thick silicon strip sensor fabricated at CIS with edge reduction performed by SCIPP and the NRL and wire bonded to an ALiBaVa readout system. Sub-pixel resolution of the 55 μm active edge pixels was achieved. Further scans showed no drop in charge collection recorded between the centre and edge pixels, with a maximum deviation of 5% in charge collection between scanned edge pixels. Scans across the cleaved and standard guard ring edges of the strip detector also show no reduction in charge collection. These results indicate techniques such as the scribe, cleave and passivate (SCP) and active edge processes offer real potential for reduced edge, tiled sensors for imaging detection applications.