A method to optimize mass discrimination of particles identified in $$\Delta E$$–E silicon surface barrier detector systems

Abstract

In several experiments, a system composed by two surface barrier detectors, one thin and one thicker, is used to identify the charge of a nucleus that is detected in this system. The nucleus loses part of its energy ($$\Delta E$$) in the thin detector and the remaining part (E) is left in the thick one. Since the energy loss depends on the charge, this process allows the identification of the nuclear charge. The energy loss also depends on the mass of the particle, but with a lower degree of sensitivity. Therefore, the identification of the nuclear mass is much more difficult. In this paper, we present a method to treat the data in order to optimize the mass discrimination of particles detected in $$\Delta E$$–E systems.