Gated silicon drift detector fabricated from a low-cost silicon wafer.

Inexpensive high-resolution silicon (Si) X-ray detectors are required for on-site surveys of traces of hazardous elements in food and soil by measuring the energies and counts of X-ray fluorescence photons radially emitted from these elements. Gated silicon drift detectors (GSDDs) are much cheaper to fabricate than commercial silicon drift detectors (SDDs). However, previous GSDDs were fabricated from 10-kΩ·cm Si wafers, which are more expensive than 2-kΩ·cm Si wafers used in commercial SDDs.