Performance of the micro-PIC gaseous area detector in small-angle X-ray scattering experiments

The application of a two-dimensional photon-counting detector based on a micro-pixel gas chamber (µ-PIC) to high-resolution small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), and its performance, are reported. The µ-PIC is a micro-pattern gaseous detector fabricated by printed circuit board technology. This article describes the performance of the µ-PIC in SAXS experiments at SPring-8. A dynamic range of >10⁵ was obtained for X-ray scattering from a polystyrene sphere solution. A maximum counting rate of up to 5 MHz was observed with good linearity and without saturation. For a diffraction pattern of collagen, weak peaks were observed in the high-angle region in one accumulation of photons.