A Monolithic Segmented Germanium Detector with Highly Integrated Readout

We have constructed a pixelated germanium detector using a technique which has been shown to provide good isolation between adjacent pixels. In this work we present initial tests of the application of a low-noise CMOS ASIC to read out this detector. The detector has 64 pixels, each 0.5 mm×5 mm, arranged as a series of strips. It is connected by wire-bonds to two 32-channel application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) which provide a complete photon-counting chain for every channel. Since the size of the pixel array is no longer restricted by the difficulties of instrumenting large channel-count conventional electronics, this development will open up the possibility of even larger arrays, similar to those offered by silicon detectors.