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Introduction
To begin with, we have chosen this topic due to the fact that silicon radiation detectors are one of the main type of particle detectors used in the radiation detection industry nowadays. Hence, it is crucial for an engineer in this field to know the history of silicon production as well as the development process and concrete examples of the different types of detectors.
In this wiki page we are studying the rapid progress of the silicon radiation detectors, the design of the single sided stereo angle silicon strip detector, cadmium telluride (CdTe) and cadmium zinc telluride (CdZnTe) or CZT pixel detectors and the development of the detectors in Finland. The information was collected from Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers/Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEEE/IEE) Electronic Library online.
History of silicon radiation detectors
According to Rehak (2003), silicon is the main material which is used in electronics and radiation detection industries. Moreover, there was a rapid development in the field of silicon radiation detectors in the last decade, which could be noted as a considerable progress after 1982, when planar technology was invented. [1.] Furthermore, according to Orava et al (2007), even today new development activity is initiated with introduction of 3D detector technologies, active edge silicon processing and other perspective inventions in the field. [3.] It has to be said that there is always interaction between electronics industry and silicon radiation detectors because they both use silicon as the main component. The main point is that silicon used for radiation detectors should have 3-4 times more resistivity and lower density of traps than the one used for electronics. [1.]
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Planar technology was introduced in 1982, which led to the rapid progress in development of the silicon detectors. Among others, strip detectors were invented and matched to meet the requirements of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) developed at The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). Main advantages were lower noise, smaller capacitance, room working temperature, easier production, reduced cooling requirements and larger area coverage. [1;3]
Strip silicon radiation detectors
Silicon detectors consist of n type material while having p type aluminium strips on the surface which are separated by a thin insulator. At the same time there is an electric field between the p strips and the n type material. When a radiation particle passes the detector, silicon atoms are ionized and free electrons leave these atoms with an electron vacancy (holes). After they reach the p type strip they are collected and then create a charge on the aluminium strip which is possible to be measured with special electronics.
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Furthermore, detector is designed in a way that every second strip is long while short strips are crossing them which helps to register particles at better angles to the surface of the sensor. Consequently, the high efficiency and proper special resolution are achieved. [3].
CdTe and CdZnTe pixel detectors
Cadmium telluride (CdTe) is a stable crystalline compound composed from cadmium and tellurium. Doped with a small amount of Zn it produces cadmium zinc telluride, (CdZnTe) or CZT.
CdTe and CdZnTe pixel detectors are implementing in imaging systems which are widely used in medical diagnostics (mammography, dental phantoms), astronomy, and industrial research.
CdTe and CdZnTe pixel detectors are very appealing due to their high energy resolution at normal conditions which is not high enough in currently implementing materials [4, 1]. Another advantage of those detectors is their perfect efficiency while working with X-ray energy spectrum as well as compatibility with gamma rays, alpha and beta particles [5, 3].
Nowadays, there are two ways of using CdTe/CZT detectors. The first one is focused on single channel detectors which are used in X- and gamma- ray spectroscopy. The second is proposed for multi-channel devices in nuclear medicine mostly. [5, 26]
Silicon radiation detectors characteristics
As an example, we have considered datasheets of 2 sensors. Those are DT Standard Photodiode Products [7] and First Sensor PIN PD [8].
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Figure 6.First Sensor PIN PD characteristics. Reprinted from http://www.marubun.co.jp [8].
Interface electronic circuits
As almost all other sensors, radiation detectors need to be interfaced before being able to process the data. An interface or a signal conditioning circuit has a specific purpose: to bring the signal from the sensor up to the format which is compatible with the load device [10]. Cremat Inc. radiation detection electronics can be used with a wide range of detectors, including compound semiconductor radiation detectors, scintillator-photodiode detectors, avalanche photodiodes etc [9].
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Figure 10. CR-160 Gaussian shaping amplifier evaluation board. Copied from http://www.cremat.com [9].
The CR-160 includes an adjustable low-noise wide-band amplifier having gains adjustable from 0 to 100. Combined with the CR-200-X gain of 10, this allows an overall gain of 0 to 1000. Furthermore, an inverted-polarity signal is available, as well as adjustments for pole-zero correction and DC offset.[9.] In order to calibrate the sensor there is a number of potentiometers: Fine Gain to adjust the gain from 0 to 100; Pole-Zero to adjust the baseline of the output; Offset Adjustment; Signal Polarity;
The whole system has analog nature without any conversion to digital format. A/D conversion is typically happening in PC or various embedded systems. For instance, pulse height analyzer (PHA) is an instrument used in nuclear and elementary particle physics research which accepts electronic pulses of varying heights from particle and event detectors, digitizes the pulse heights, and saves the number of pulses of each height in registers or channels for later spectral analysis.
Last but not least, there is a possibility to read out the radiation signal when multichannel detectors are used using application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC). An example is AGIPD: Adaptive Gain Integrated Pixel detector (Figure 11).
Figure 11. AGIPD detector. Copied from http://indico.cern.ch/event/137337/material/slides/0?contribId=10&sessionId=5 [11].
AGIPD detector consists of 64x64 pixels sensor array which is connected to ASIC circuit (Figure 12).
Figure 12. ASIC readout circuit. Copied from http://indico.cern.ch/event/137337/material/slides/0?contribId=10&sessionId=5 [11].
Inside the ASIC there are added capacitors which help to minimize the noise. The stored analog value is multiplexed and transferred then to ADCs. After that the signal is proceed to column bus from where it goes to DAQ system. [11.]
Development in Finland
Today there are two big companies which implement CdTe/CZT detectors in Finland.
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Wafer is a very thin slice of silicon crystal which is used to produce the actual detectors. The production line at VTT can make wafers up to 200 mm in diameter using planar technology. Furthermore, the thickness of the strip detectors is only 150 μm or 300 μm which can be implemented for different bias configurations. Area of the detectors is from 5 x 5 cm2 to 1 x 1 cm2. Interestingly, the modern fabrication techniques such as etching, planarization, lithography and bonding are applied. The most important thing is that leakage currents of the detectors are under few nanoamperes, which makes it acceptable for radiation detection. [2].
References
Rehak, P. ; Brookhaven Nat. Lab., Upton, NY, USA. Silicon radiation detectors [online]. Nuclear Science Symposium Conference Record, 2003 IEEE (Volume:5 ); 19-25 Oct. 2003, 2492-2497.
URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.ezproxy.metropolia.fi/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=1352629, Accessed 16 March 2014.
Virolainen, T. ; Kamarainen, V. ; Ji, F. ; Garcia, F. ; Orava, R. ; van Remortel, N. ; Santala, M. Silicon radiation detector development at VTT [online]. Nuclear Science Symposium Conference Record, 2007. NSS '07. IEEE (Volume:2 ); Oct. 26 2007-Nov. 3 2007, 1494-1497.
URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.ezproxy.metropolia.fi/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=4437282, Accessed 16 March 2014.
Huhtinen, M. ; Res. Inst. for High Energy Phys., Helsinki, Finland ; Orava, R. ; Pimia, M. ; Tuuva, T. Single sided stereo angle silicon strip detector [online]. Nuclear Science, IEEE Transactions on (Volume:40 , Issue: 4 ); Aug 1993, 227-229.
URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.ezproxy.metropolia.fi/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=256575, Accessed 16 March 2014.
- Yossi Eisen, Asher Shor, Israel Mardor (2004) CdTe and CdZnTe X-Ray and Gamma-Ray Detectors for Imaging Systems. IEEE transactions on nuclear science; June 2004, Val. 51, No. 3.
URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.ezproxy.metropolia.fi/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=1312040&tag=1, Accessed 17 March 2014.
- Tom Schulman (2006) Si, CdTe and CdZnTe radiation detectors for imaging applications. University of Helsinki, Finland; June 19, 2006.
- AJAT Ltd. official webpage
URL: http://www.ajat.fi/, Accessed 17 March 2014.
- Detection Technology Oy official webpage
URL: http://www.deetee.com/en_US/home.html, Accessed 5 April 2014.
- Marubun Corporation official webpage
URL: http://www.marubun.co.jp/product/measurement/sensor/8ids6e000000k1lh-att/X100-7SMD.pdf, Accessed 5 April 2014.
- Cremat Inc. official webpage
URL: http://www.cremat.com/ , Accessed 10 April 2014.
- Jacob Fraden–3rd ed. Handbook of modern sensors : physics, designs, and applications. Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., USA; 2004
- Integrated Digital conference Official website. International Workshop on Semiconductor Pixel Detectors for Particles and Imaging. Hotel Listel Inawashiro, Inawashiro, Japan; 2-9 Spt. 2012.
URL: http://indico.cern.ch/event/137337/material/slides/0?contribId=10&sessionId=5
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