A 2D smart pixel detector for time resolved protein crystallography

A smart pixel detector is being developed for Time Resolved Crystallography for biological and material science applications. Using the Pixel Detector presented here, the Laue method will enable the study of the evolution of structural changes that occur within the protein as a function of time. The X-ray pixellated detector is assembled to the integrated circuit through a bump bonding process. Within a pixel size of 150/spl times/150 /spl mu/m/sup 2/, a low noise preamplifier-shaper, a discriminator, a 3 bit counter and the readout logic are integrated. The read out, based on the Column Architecture principle, will accept hit rates above 5/spl times/10/sup 8//cm/sup 2//s with a maximum hit rate per pixel of 1 MHz. This detector will allow time resolved Laue crystallography to be performed in a frameless operation mode, without dead time. Target specifications, architecture and preliminary results on the 8/spl times/8 front-end prototype and the column readout are presented.