Characterization of new semiconductor detectors for x-ray tomography in the ASDEX Upgrade Tokamak and its generalized physics interpretations

The energy response of a new semiconductor detector in the ASDEX Upgrade Tokamak for plasma x-ray tomography studies is characterized using synchrotron radiation from a 2.5 GeV positron storage ring at the National Institute for High Energy Physics in Japan. This international collaborating research clarifies a fairly good agreement between the x-ray energy response data and our recently proposed theoretical predictions for such a semiconductor x-ray-detector response. The x-ray response for several positions on the active area of the detector unit is studied; a good uniformity observed guarantees that the detector can employ any sized and shaped collimator for the x-ray tomography regardless of any correction factor coming from the response nonuniformity on the detector active area. Operational conditions of the detector for the ASDEX Upgrade plasma diagnostics are optimized using its capacitance measurements as a function of an applied bias as well as the numerical evaluations of the detector response; these are also directly verified by the synchrotron-radiation experiments. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.