The gas pixel detector at the focus of an x-ray optics

Small x-ray telescope based on lobster eye x-ray optics and pixel detector

10.1117/12.820729 ◽

2009 ◽

Author(s):

Vladimír Tichý ◽

Martin Hromčík ◽

René Hudec ◽

Adolf Inneman ◽

Jan Jakubek ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Pixel Detector ◽

Ray Optics ◽

X Ray ◽

Small X ◽

Lobster Eye

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Photoelectric Polarimetry and the Gas Pixel Detector Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Galaxies ◽

10.3390/galaxies6030071 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 6 (3) ◽

pp. 71

Author(s):

Enrico Costa

Keyword(s):

Compton Scattering ◽

Photoelectric Effect ◽

Bragg Diffraction ◽

X Rays ◽

Pixel Detector ◽

Ray Optics ◽

X Ray ◽

Time Position ◽

Almost All

Since the very beginning of X-ray Astronomy, polarimetry has been suggested as a tool of diagnostics, of great potentiality. While almost all measurements of X-rays were based on detectors using the photoelectric effect, the first attempt to perform polarimetry were based on Compton scattering and Bragg diffraction. The use of photoelectric effect also for polarimetry has been hypothesized and attempted for many years but never accomplished. Only 40 years from the start of X-ray astronomy, the Gas Pixel Detector (GPD) was developed, compatible with an X-ray optics, and capable of measuring energy, time, position and polarization simultaneously. Only after 20 more years, the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, based on the GPD detectors, will be launched. I present the story of the development of photoelectric polarimetry that arrived to the Gas Pixel Detector, and discuss the possible future evolutions.

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X-ray microprobe for materials science

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100168013 ◽

1994 ◽

Vol 52 ◽

pp. 56-57

Author(s):

G.E. Ice

Keyword(s):

Crystallographic Orientation ◽

Local Structure ◽

Materials Science ◽

Chemical Information ◽

X Ray Diffraction ◽

Ray Optics ◽

X Ray ◽

Novel Materials ◽

New Information ◽

Elemental Sensitivity

The increasing availability of synchrotron x-ray sources has stimulated the development of advanced hard x-ray (E≥5 keV) microprobes. With new x-ray optics these microprobes can achieve micron and submicron spatial resolutions. The inherent elemental and crystallographic sensitivity of an x-ray microprobe and its inherently nondestructive and penetrating nature will have important applications to materials science. For example, x-ray fluorescent microanalysis of materials can reveal elemental distributions with greater sensitivity than alternative nondestructive probes. In materials, segregation and nonuniform distributions are the rule rather than the exception. Common interfaces to whichsegregation occurs are surfaces, grain and precipitate boundaries, dislocations, and surfaces formed by defects such as vacancy and interstitial configurations. In addition to chemical information, an x-ray diffraction microprobe can reveal the local structure of a material by detecting its phase, crystallographic orientation and strain.Demonstration experiments have already exploited the penetrating nature of an x-ray microprobe and its inherent elemental sensitivity to provide new information about elemental distributions in novel materials.

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