High-accuracy X-ray detector calibration based on cryogenic radiometry

Abstract

Cryogenic electrical substitution radiometers (ESRs) are absolute thermal detectors, based on the equivalence of electrical power and radiant power. Their core piece is a cavity absorber, which is typically made of copper to achieve a short response time. At higher photon energies, the use of copper prevents the operation of ESRs due to increasing transmittance. A new absorber design for hard X‐rays has been developed at the laboratory of the Physikalisch‐Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) at the electron storage ring BESSY II. The Monte Carlo simulation code Geant4 was applied to optimize its absorptance for photon energies of up to 60 keV. The measurement of the radiant power of monochromatized synchrotron radiation was achieved with relative standard uncertainties of less than 0.2 %, covering the entire photon energy range of three beamlines from 50 eV to 60 keV. Monochromatized synchrotron radiation of high spectral purity is used to calibrate silicon photodiodes against the ESR for photon energies up to 60 keV with relative standard uncertainties below 0.3 %. For some silicon photodiodes, the photocurrent is not linear with the incident radiant power.