Electrical and functional characterization of a novel self-biased linear silicon drift detector

We describe here a novel design of self-biased linear Silicon Drift Detector (SDD) which minimizes the dead area and ensures an uniform thermal distribution on the sensitive zone of the detector itself. The proper potential profile in the sensitive zone is established by the voltage drop along a single cathode which acts at the same time as a voltage divider and a field cathode. To verify the effectiveness of the novel working prinicple, a 2 x 3.4 cm2 preliminary prototype has been manufactured by Canberra Semiconductor. The static and dynamic characteristics of the proposed device confirm that the spatial resolution (20 pm) is not affected by the convergence of the cathode-strips if the voltage drop along them is linear.