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Wide aperture, high-dynamic range, solid-state scanning diode arrays up to 1 inch with 1024 diodes have been available for chemical and astronomical spectroscopy instrumentations. However, the expanding scientific applications, as in the detection of nuclear particles, has created demands for longer diode arrays with a wide aperture; i.e., 25 microns by 2500 microns for each pixel. Driven by these demands, an array with 2048 contiguously aligned diodes was designed and developed. Because of the stringent requirements for dynamic range and milliseconds readout time, the array was partitioned into segments with multiple video lines accessing the diodes. Using this structure, the array die length was just over 2 inches with four segments with four sets of video lines. Associated with each segment is an independent shift register which controls the diode readout. This layout structure provides a variety of readout configurations, among them the sequential readout mode. An additional aspect of the array is its mechanical structure in the package design. It was designed to mate with an especially designed fibre-optic face plate which was mounted to the die. This paper discusses the new scientific device's design, its structure, its implementation, and its measurements.
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