Using a 4-Megapixel Hybrid Photon Counting Detector for Fast, Laboratory-Based Nanoscale X-Ray Tomography

Published

May 12, 2026

Author(s)

Jordan Fonseca, Zachary Levine, Andras Vladar, Daniel Swetz, Felix Kim, John Henry Scott, Joseph Fowler, Nathan Ortiz, Paul Szypryt, Nathan Nakamura

Abstract

Abstract Hybrid photon counting detectors (HPCDs) have unlocked new capabilities for X-ray-based measurements at synchrotrons around the world in the last 30 years. By leveraging independently optimized sensor and readout layers, they offer high quantum efficiency (>80 %), ultra-low dark counts, sub-pixel point-spread function, and high count rates (>106 counts per pixel per second). Furthermore, their small pixel size and large active area endow them with excellent coverage and resolution for both real-space and reciprocal space imaging. Here, we demonstrate that HPCDs are also well-suited for laboratory-based nanoscale X-ray tomography (nano-xCT). We perform nano-xCT on an integrated circuit fabricated at the 130-nm node and produce a 3D reconstruction with over 40 times more photons collected more than 20 times faster than in this group's previous work, for an overall speedup of over 800×. We review the technical considerations of using an HPCD for tabletop tomography. We quantify our reconstruction image quality using well-established metrics, including the modulation transfer function (MTF), Fourier shell correlation (FSC), and contrast-to-noise (CNR), to validate our choice of experimental parameters that provide sufficient resolution and imaging speed. We determine that under current experimental conditions, 160-nm wiring features are reconstructed at 75–80 nm spatial resolution.

Citation

Microscopy and Microanalysis

Volume

32

Issue

3

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1093/mam/ozag034

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Keywords

hybrid photon counting detector (HPCD), x-ray tomography (xCT), nanotomography, nano-xCT, integrated circuits (IC), critical dimensionality, scanning electron microscope (SEM), semiconductor metrology, failure analysis (FA)

Citation

Fonseca, J. , Levine, Z. , Vladar, A. , Swetz, D. , Kim, F. , Scott, J. , Fowler, J. , Ortiz, N. , Szypryt, P. and Nakamura, N. (2026), Using a 4-Megapixel Hybrid Photon Counting Detector for Fast, Laboratory-Based Nanoscale X-Ray Tomography, Microscopy and Microanalysis, [online], https://doi.org/10.1093/mam/ozag034, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=961296 (Accessed May 23, 2026)

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