Energy dependent charge spread function in a dedicated synchrotron beam pnCCD detector

A scan on the pixel edges is the method which is used to resolve the electron cloud size in the pixel array of the pnCCD detector. The EDR synchrotron radiation in BESSY is the source of the X-ray photons which are used in the scans. The radius of the electron cloud as a function of the impinging photon energy is analyzed. The angle of incidence of the X-ray beam is employed in the measurements. The measurements are validated by the numerical simulation models.
The inclined X-ray track leads to distribute the electron clouds in a certain number of pixels according to the incident angle of the X-ray beam. The pixels detect different electron clouds according to their generation position in the detector bulk. A collimated X-ray beam of 12.14 keV is used in the measurements with 30o and 40o entrance angles. It is shown that the two factors that leads to expand the electron clouds namely the diffusion and the mutual electrostatic repulsion can be separated from the measured electron clouds. It is noticed as well that the influence of the mutual electrostatic repulsion dominates the cloud expansion over the diffusion process in the collection time of the detector.
The perpendicular X-ray track leads to determine the average radius of the electron cloud per photon energy. The results show that the size of the electron clouds (RMS) in the energy range of [5.0-21.6] keV is smaller than the pixel size.