Industrial silicon detectors, advancements in planar technology

Thirty years ago planar technology was first successfully applied to the manufacture of silicon detectors and this technique led to detectors with better performance than traditional surface barrier and diffused junction types. Today, these detectors are widely used in nuclear and high-energy physics research and are widely deployed in the industrial market as well. These silicon detectors are used in health physics, X-ray fluorescence and diffraction, medical imaging, space applications, and photon (light) detection. As an industrial company, Canberra was challenged to provide detectors with high reliability along with low leakage current, thin entrance windows, a wide range of thicknesses, low noise, and position sensitivity in both single devices and arrays. A new challenge is the readout of pixilated devices. Electronics integrated into or onto the detector chip is a topic of current interest.