Radiation hardness of three-dimensional polycrystalline diamond detectors

• DOI: 10.1063/1.4921116
• Publication Date: 2015-05-15T17:00:37Z
• Authors: Stefano Lagomarsino; Marco Bellini; Chiara Corsi; Vladimir Cindro; Keida Kanxheri; Arianna Morozzi; Daniele Passeri; Leonello Servoli; Christian J. Schmidt; Silvio Sciortino
• Keywords: Tracking detectors, Solid state detectors, CVD diamond; 0103 physical sciences; Diamond, 3D, Detectors, Radiation hardness.; Three-dimensional detectors; Diamond detectors; 01 natural sciences; Polycrystalline diamond

The three-dimensional concept in particle detection is based on the fabrication of columnar electrodes perpendicular to the surface of a solid state radiation sensor. It permits to improve the radiation resistance characteristics of a material by lowering the necessary bias voltage and shortening the charge carrier path inside the material. If applied to a long-recognized exceptionally radiation-hard material like diamond, this concept promises to pave the way to the realization of detectors of unprecedented performances. We fabricated conventional and three-dimensional polycrystalline diamond detectors, and tested them before and after neutron damage up to 1.2 ×1016 cm−2, 1 MeV-equivalent neutron fluence. We found that the signal collected by the three-dimensional detectors is up to three times higher than that of the conventional planar ones, at the highest neutron damage ever experimented.