NSF Award
9660842
*** 9660842 Squillante This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will develop a solid state, large area, high resolution imaging detector by combining the semiconductor film (lead iodide, PbI2) technology being developed by the firm with the large format amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) readout technology which has been developed by Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, a collaborator in the research. Argonne National Laboratory will also collaborate in the effort and will be involved in developing low noise electronics for the detector as well as in conducting macromolecular diffraction studies. Macromolecular crystallography is a very important technique for determining structures of complex biological systems such a proteins, nucleic acids, and viruses. Due to such research on atomic level, the understanding of important biological processes such as enzyme catalysis, viral infection, immune response, hereditary information encoding, and photosynthesis has increased considerably. Macromolecular crystallography in a typical laboratory setting is performed using a rotating-anode X-ray source and an imaging X-ray detector to record the diffraction pattern from various biological samples such as proteins and viruses. Important requirements for the X-ray detectors used in such experiments include large area (>10 cm x 10 cm), high resolution (100-200 um), wide dynamic range (104), high sensitivity, and low cost. None of the existing detectors satisfy all requirements and have serious limitations in terms of permanence, size, or cost. The goal of the Phase I project is to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach in meeting these requirements. Potential commercial applications of the research include X-ray diffraction, nondestructive testing, mammography, radiology, X-ray astronomy and environmental studies. ***
