Thick and large area PIN diodes for hard X-ray astronomy

Abstract Thick and large area PIN diodes for the hard X-ray astronomy in the 10–60 keV range are developed. To cover this energy range in a room temperature and in a low background environment, Si PIN junction diodes of 2 mm in thickness with 2.5 cm 2 in effective area were developed, and will be used in the bottom of the Phoswich Hard X-ray Detector (HXD), on-board the ASTRO-E satellite. Problems related to a high purity Si and a thick depletion layer during our development and performance of the PIN diodes are presented in detail.