The realization and study of (21–301) keV monochromatic X-rays

Abstract

In order to achieve monochromatic X-rays of higher energy, and so as to calibrate the hard X-ray satellite-borne detectors and to test the energy response at high energy values, a hard X-ray test facility which is based on a single crystal monochromator was designed and built. The facility consists of four parts, namely the X-ray source, the collimating structure, the single crystal monochromator and the detectors. In this work, silicon crystals Si111, Si220, Si551 were utilized in the monochromator to achieve monoenergetic X-ray photons, which is based on crystal Bragg diffraction. By means of adjusting Bragg angle, different energy values can be obtained. The 21–301 keV monochromatic X-rays were realized and studied in this work. The experiment results indicate that there is a good linear relationship between monochromatic light flux and X-ray tube current. The broadening of energy spectra gets wider with increasing energy value, thus worsening the energy resolution. Stability of the hard X-ray test facility was studied, and results suggest that the energy stability is better than 0.4% within 50 h. Besides, the stability of monochromatic light flux is better than 1.4% within 50 h. Therefore, the hard X-ray test facility has a wide energy range and shows very good performance about stability. Thus, it can be used to carry out some experiments, especially to calibrate the hard X-ray satellite-borne detectors. This work will be helpful to the development of the X-ray astronomy.