Iso-Potential Guard Ring Engineered 4H-SiC Soft X-Ray Photon Counting Detector With Room-Temperature Energy Spectroscopy Capability

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In this work, a room-temperature 4H-SiC soft X-ray photon counting detector with excellent photon energy resolution is demonstrated. Based on the 100-μm epi-layer with low intrinsic doping, the joint termination with iso-potential guard ring, and the low-leakage fabrication technology, the 4H-SiC p-i-n detector achieves an extremely low room-temperature leakage lower than 1 pA at -200 V, and high temperature stability up to 200°C. Additionally, based on the development of amplification electronics featuring a reset charge-sensitive amplifier, the electronic noise has been well alleviated for photon energy spectrometry. A superior energy resolution of 285 eV @5.9 keV and a low noise floor below 0.5 keV have been realized. Together with the advantageous photon energy response linearity in the soft X-ray region, a prototype uncooled X-ray spectrometer based on the 4H-SiC detector is demonstrated, paving a way to advanced soft X-ray detection technology with easy packaging and lower power consumption.