Characterisation of micro-strip and pixel silicon detectors before and after hadron irradiation

Abstract

The use of segmented silicon detectors for tracking and vertexing in particle physics has grown substantially since their introduction in 1980. It is now anticipated that roughly 50,000 six inch wafers of high resistivity silicon will need to be processed into sensors to be deployed in the upgraded experiments in the future high luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) at CERN. These detectors will also face an extremely severe radiation environment, varying with distance from the interaction point. The volume of required sensors is large and their delivery is required during a relatively short time, demanding a high throughput from the chosen suppliers. The current situation internationally, in this highly specialist market, means that security of supply for large orders can therefore be an issue and bringing additional potential vendors into the field can only be an advantage. Semiconductor companies that could include planar sensors suitable for particle physics in their product lines will, however, need to prove their products meet all the stringent technical requirements. A semiconductor company with very widespread experience of producing science grade CCDs (including deep depletion devices) has adapted their CCD process to fabricate for the first time several wafers of pixel and micro-strip radiation hard sensors, suitable for future high energy physics experiments. The results of the pre-irradiation characterization of devices fabricated with different processing parameters and the measurements of charge collection properties after different hadron irradiation doses up to those anticipated for the (larger area) outer pixel layers at the high-luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) are presented and compared with results from more established particle physics suppliers.