Applied Research Corporation (ARC) proposes to develop a new class of solid state particle/radiation detectors. Arrays of these detectors will provide images with superior quality. More specifically, we propose to develop soft X-ray detectors (E=0.5-20 keV) for biological applications, e.g. in protein crystallography. The proposed detector will advance present material characterization capabilities by improving spatial, angular and energy resolution. Furthermore, it is radiation hard and permits imaging of very high fluxes, say over million photons/sec, in both UV and soft X-rays. Subsequently, a 2048 x 2048 pixel array with count-rates better than 108 counts/second will be developed for applications in Synchrotron Radiation and Free Electron Laser facilities. The detector is based on energy sensitive superconducting structures and has already been tested with X-ray sources. In Phase I, ARC will perform a series of measurements of quantum detection efficiency (QDE). We will optimize detector properties (energy resolution, stopping power) for applications as high spatial resolution detector. A read-out electronics for a small array detector, e.g. 64 x 64 pixels, will be developed and tested.
