Megapixels @ Megahertz – The AGIPD high-speed cameras for the European XFEL

The European XFEL is an extremely brilliant Free Electron Laser Source with a very demanding pulse structure: trains of 2700 X-ray pulses are repeated at 10Hz. The pulses inside the train are spaced by 220ns and each one contains up to 1012photons of 12.4keV, while being ≤100fs in length. AGIPD, the Adaptive Gain Integrating Pixel Detector, is a hybrid pixel detector developed by DESY, PSI, and the Universities of Bonn and Hamburg to cope with these properties. It is a fast, low noise integrating detector, with single photon sensitivity (for Eγ⪆6keV) and a large dynamic range, up to 104 photons at 12.4keV. This is achieved with a charge sensitive amplifier with 3 adaptively selected gains per pixel. 352 images can be recorded at up to 6.5MHz and stored in the in-pixel analogue memory and read out between pulse trains. The core component of this detector is the AGIPD ASIC, which consists of 64 × 64 pixels of 200µm×200µm. Control of the ASIC’s image acquisition and analogue readout is via a command based interface. FPGA based electronic boards, controlling ASIC operation, image digitisation and 10GE data transmission interface AGIPD detectors to DAQ and control systems. An AGIPD 1Mpixel detector has been installed at the SPB 11Single particles, Clusters and Biomolecules. experimental station in August 2017, while a second one is currently commissioned for the MID 22Materials Imaging and Dynamics.endstation. A larger (4Mpixel) AGIPD detector and one to employ Hi-Z sensor material to efficiently register photons up to Eγ≈25keV are currently under construction.