Detector Applications
Semiconductor detectors are now applied to a very wide range of problems. The combination of relatively low cost, excellent energy resolution, and simultaneous broad energy-spectrum analysis is uniquely suited to many applications in both basic and applied physics. Alternative techniques, such as magnetic spectrometers for charged-particle spectroscopy, while offering better energy resolution, are bulky, expensive, and usually far more difficult to use. Furthermore, they do not directly provide the broad energy-spectrum measurements easily accomplished using semiconductor detectors. Scintillation detectors, which are approximately equivalent to semiconductor detectors in convenience and cost, exhibit 10 to 100 times worse energy resolution. However, their high efficiency and large potential size recommend their use in some measurements.