This paper presents a novel full-depletion Si X-ray detector based on silicon-on-insulator pixel (SOIPIX) technology using a pinned depleted diode structure, named the SOIPIX-PDD. The SOIPIX-PDD greatly reduces stray capacitance at the charge sensing node, the dark current of the detector, and capacitive coupling between the sensing node and SOI circuits. These features of the SOIPIX-PDD lead to low read noise, resulting high X-ray energy resolution and stable operation of the pixel. The back-gate surface pinning structure using neutralized p-well at the back-gate surface and depleted n-well underneath the p-well for all the pixel area other than the charge sensing node is also essential for preventing hole injection from the p-well by making the potential barrier to hole, reducing dark current from the Si-SiO₂ interface and creating lateral drift field to gather signal electrons in the pixel area into the small charge sensing node. A prototype chip using 0.2 μm SOI technology shows very low readout noise of 11.0 e⁻_rms, low dark current density of 56 pA/cm² at −35 °C and the energy resolution of 200 eV(FWHM) at 5.9 keV and 280 eV (FWHM) at 13.95 keV.

In this paper, the diode characteristics of our newly proposed super-steep subthreshold slope “PN-body tied (PNBT) silicon-on-insulator field-effect transistor” are presented, and compared with conventional diodes. We report that the device possesses super-steep characteristics, low leakage current, and sharp turn-on characteristics, even in the ultralow voltage range (50 mV). These indicate that the PNBT diode can potentially be used in high-efficiency rectification for energy harvesting, particularly in situations where there is ultralow input power. In addition, the hysteresis characteristics and the slight shift of the voltage at zero current are confirmed as specific characteristics of PNBT diodes.

The interrelation between off-leakage as consideration of low-power operation and X-ray radiation hardness has been evaluated in view of optimizing the lightly doped drain (LDD) concentration of fully depleted silicon-on-insulator pMOSFET. The MOSFET with relatively low LDD concentration called ultralow-power P channel LDD (ULP-PLDD) shows a lower off-leakage of 0.1 pA/μm but limited X-ray radiation tolerance, such that the drain current is reduced by ~80% after 112-kGy(Si) X-ray irradiation due to radiation-induced gate length modulation (RIGLEM), while the MOSFET with six times higher LDD concentration called radiation-hardened PLDD (RH-PLDD) shows much higher radiation tolerance that the drain current reduction is ~20% for the same radiation dose because of RIGLEM improvement by the elimination of the offset structure employed in ULP-PLDD. The off-leakage of RH-PLDD is one order of magnitude higher than that of ULP-PLDD as <;1 pA/μm. It is shown that there is such a tradeoff between low-power operation and radiation hardness.