Characterization of phosphors in the soft X-ray region

Abstract The phosphor detector has unique properties for soft X-ray spectroscopy. As a calorimetric detector, it is insensitive to surface contamination, it is rather rugged, and reproducible. We examined the response functions of the phosphors P31, P15, P46-Y1, P46-Y2, and P47 to photons in the energy range of 320–1000 eV and in the flux range of 107–1010 photons/s mm2. All phosphors showed nearly linear response with X-ray intensity, but only P31 showed nearly linear response with the photon energy. The luminescence yield from other phosphors increases less rapidly with photon energy. The energy response function is also found to depend slightly on the way the phosphor is applied.