Ultra-LEGe Detectors

Features

• Spectroscopy from 300 eV to 300 keV
• High efficiency
• Good peak shape
• High peak/background ratio
• Optional polymer film window

Description

The CANBERRA Ultra-LEGe detector extends the performance range of Ge detectors down to a few hundred electron volts, providing resolution, peak shape, and peak-to-background ratios once thought to be unattainable with semiconductor detectors. The Ultra-LEGe retains the high-energy efficiency intrinsic to germanium detectors because of the high atomic number (Z) and thus covers an extremely wide range of energies.

Conventional Ge detectors, including those made especially for low energies, suffer from poor peak shape and efficiency below 3 keV. This characteristic, once thought to be fundamental to Ge, prohibited use of Ge detectors in most analytical x-ray applications. CANBERRA has developed detector fabrication techniques which have eliminated these problems. The resulting detector, the Ultra-LEGe, delivers the intrinsic efficiency and resolution advantages of germanium without the disadvantages of the conventional germanium detector.

Because of the detector structure pioneered by CANBERRA and employed in all LEGe detectors, the Ultra-LEGe offers excellent performance over a wide range of detector sizes. The resolution, for example, of a 100 mm² Ultra-LEGe is less than 150 eV (FWHM) at 5.9 keV. The very best Si(Li) detectors of this size have resolution in excess of 160 eV (FWHM).