ABSTRACT
A brief introduction to the SDD (silicon drift detector) x-ray detector was given in Section 1.17. Struder et al. give a detailed review in the book X-Ray Spectroscopy: Recent Technical Advances (see Table 1.1 [8]). There is no better introduction to the principles of the SDD than to refer back to the original description by the inventors, Emilio Gatti and Pavel Rehak [1,2], in their paper presented at the 2nd Pisa Con ference on Advanced Detectors in 1983 (see also Section 11.26). To demonstrate full depletion of a silicon wafer for the detection of ionising radiation, they constructed a test device using an n-type Si wafer with p+ contacts (Au) on both faces and several small n+ contacts (Al) around the edges (see Figure 9.1a).
