Compton recoil electron tracking with silicon strip detectors

The application of silicon strip detectors to Compton gamma ray astronomy telescopes is described. The silicon Compton recoil telescope tracks Compton recoil electrons in silicon strip converters to provide an unique direction for Compton scattered gamma rays above 1 MeV. With strip detectors of modest positional and energy resolutions, of 1 mm FWHM and 3% at 662 keV, respectively, true imaging can be achieved to provide an order of magnitude improvement in sensitivity to 1.6×10 ^-6 γ/cm²-s at 2 MeV. The results of extensive Monte Carlo calculations of recoil electrons traversing multiple layers of 200 μm silicon wafers are presented. Multiple Coulomb scattering of the recoil electron in the silicon wafer of the Compton interaction and the next adjacent wafer is the basic limitation to determining the electron´s initial direction