Powder X-ray diffraction diagram with a silicon microstrip detector

The present paper reports on a complete diffraction pattern obtained with a 32 channels Si microstrip detector when a standard ZnO sample is illuminated with 8.04 keV photons. Information from single photon conversion in each detector channel is routed to a VLSI readout chain that contains analog amplification, pulse shaping, digitization and counting circuitry for each individual channel. The read out pitch is 200 /spl mu/m and data acquisition is performed with a custom made PC card. The current system represents an intermediate step toward a long linear array for powder X-ray crystallography.