Advances in silicon carbide X-ray detectors

The latest advances in SiC X-ray detectors are presented: a pixel detector coupled to a custom ultra low noise CMOS preamplifier has been characterized at room and high temperature. An equivalent noise energy (ENE) of 113 eV FWHM, corresponding to 6.1 electrons r.m.s., has been achieved with the detector/front-end system operating at +30 °C. A Fano factor of F=0.10 has been estimated from the ⁵⁵Fe spectrum. When the system is heated up to +100 °C, the measured ENE is 163 eV FWHM (8.9 electrons r.m.s.). It is determined that both at room and at high temperature the performance are fully limited by the noise of the front-end electronics. It is also presented the capability of SiC detectors to operate in environments under unstable temperature conditions without any apparatus for temperature stabilization; it has been proved that a SiC detector can acquire high resolution X-ray spectra without spectral line degradation while the system temperature changes between +30 and +75 °C.     

`R-lens filter': An (RC)n current-mode lowpass filter

A continuous-time (RC)ⁿ lowpass filter is presented that can be fully integrated with cutoff frequency down to the 0.1 MHz range. The circuit is based on a cascade of new compact RC-cells that provides current amplification and filtering with minimum power dissipation (<15 μW/pole) using a single supply voltage (2 V). The high value resistance of the RC-cell is obtained by means of a current conveyor feedback that de-magnifies the signal current flowing in a small physical resistor. The circuit is intrinsically low-noise due to a `cooling effect' in the equivalent resistor     

Implanted silicon JFET on completely depleted high-resistivitydevices

To satisfy the increasing interest in the integration of electronics onto optical and ionizing particle fully depleted detectors, a nonconventional JFET (junction field-effect transistor), designed to operate on a completely depleted, 2-kΩ-cm resistivity silicon substrate, has been designed, fabricated, and tested at room temperature. The devices show very low gate leakage current, low output conductance, a transconductance per unit gate width of 3 mS/mm, and a pinch-off voltage of -1.5 V. The integration of the devices onto the detectors makes possible the matching of the input capacitance of the JFET to the detector's output capacitance, which is of the order of few hundreds of femtorads. The measured gate capacitance of 200 fF is shown to correspond to an expected resolution in charge measurements, at room temperature, of less than 40 electrons rms. The fabrication constraints, imposed by the limited number of production steps of the detectors, are reported     

Design criteria of low-power low-noise charge amplifiers in VLSIbipolar technology

The criteria underlying the design of low-noise front-end integrated electronics for radiation and particle detectors have been determined, taking into account the limits in the allowable power dissipation. The analysis specifically treats integrated amplifiers employing silicon bipolar transistors, whose performance has been studied to highlight the ultimate noise limit and the roles of the front-end device parameters such as the current gain, the base spreading resistance, the junction and diffusion capacitances, the transition frequency, and the device geometry. The relationships existing among the power dissipated in the front-end stage, the noise performance, and the characteristic of signal processing are derived     

Low-noise silicon carbide X-ray sensor with wide operating temperature range

A silicon carbide (SiC) sensor is presented with high energy resolution in X-ray spectroscopy over a wide temperature range (27-100/spl deg/C). The sensor, consisting of a Schottky barrier diode on high resistivity epitaxial SiC, is characterised by an extremely low noise due to its ultra-low reverse current density even at high operating temperature (15 pA/cm/sup 2/ at 27/spl deg/C and 0.5 nA/cm/sup 2/ at 100/spl deg/C). Equivalent noise charges as low as 17 electrons rms at 27/spl deg/C and 47 electrons rms at 100/spl deg/C have been measured, allowing X-ray spectroscopy with an energy resolution as low as 315 eV and 797 eV FWHM, respectively.     

Low frequency gate current noise in high electron mobilitytransistors: experimental analysis

An experimental investigation on the gate current noise in a pseudomorphic HEMT has been carried out. The measurements have been performed from 10 Hz to 100 kHz, at different bias conditions. It is shown that the noise spectral power density strongly depends on the biasing point and can be explained in terms of carrier trapping phenomena by means of packets of Lorentzian components     

Necrotizing Enterocolitis: Overview on In Vitro Models

Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) is a gut inflammatory disorder which constitutes one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality for preterm infants. The pathophysiology of NEC is yet to be fully understood; several observational studies have led to the identification of multiple factors involved in the pathophysiology of the disease, including gut immaturity and dysbiosis of the intestinal microbiome. Given the complex interactions between microbiota, enterocytes, and immune cells, and the limited access to fetal human tissues for experimental studies, animal models have long been essential to describe NEC mechanisms. However, at present there is no animal model perfectly mimicking human NEC; furthermore, the disease mechanisms appear too complex to be studied in single-cell cultures. Thus, researchers have developed new approaches in which intestinal epithelial cells are exposed to a combination of environmental and microbial factors which can potentially trigger NEC. In addition, organoids have gained increasing attention as promising models for studying NEC development. Currently, several in vitro models have been proposed and have contributed to describe the disease in deeper detail. In this paper, we will provide an updated review of available in vitro models of NEC and an overview of current knowledge regarding its molecular underpinnings.     

Epitaxial silicon carbide for X-ray detection

We present the first experimental results of X-ray detection and spectroscopy by means of Schottky junctions on epitaxial silicon carbide (SiC). The devices have a junction area of 3 mm² on an n-type 4H-SiC layer 30 μm thick with a dopant concentration of 1.8×10 cm at 300 K, the reverse current density of the best device varies between 2 pA/cm² and 18 pA/cm² as the mean electric field is increased from 40 kV/cm up to 170 kV/cm. The devices have been tested with X and γ rays from ²⁴¹Am; the best measured energy resolution is 2.7 keV FWHM at room temperature     

Pixel X-ray detectors in epitaxial gallium arsenide withhigh-energy resolution capabilities (Fano factor experimentaldetermination)

Gallium Arsenide pixel detectors with an area of 170×320 μm² and thickness of 5 μm, realized by molecular beam epitaxy, have been designed and tested with X- and γ rays. No significant charge trapping effects have been observed, and a charge collection efficiency of 100% has been measured. At room temperature an energy resolution of 671 eV full width at half maximum (FWHM) at 59.54 keV has been obtained, with an electronic noise of 532 eV FWHM. With the detector cooled to 243 K, the electronic noise is reduced to 373 eV FWHM, and the K_α and K_β lines of the ⁵⁵Fe spectrum can be resolved. The Fano factor for GaAs has been measured at room temperature with 59.5 keV photons yielding F=0.12±0.01