Efficient ultra-thin transmission silicon detectors for a single-ion irradiation system at the Lund Ion Beam Analysis Facility

Abstract

This paper describes the fabrication of efficient ultra-thin silicon transmission detectors for use as pre-cell detectors in single-ion experiments on living cells at the Lund Ion Beam Analysis Facility. More than 40 detectors of different thicknesses down to 5 μm have been fabricated and packaged. The main design considerations were very low leakage current (below 9 nA) and low full depletion voltage at biases less than 0.5 V at room temperature. In addition, we have shown that cooling the device can reduce the leakage current to 3 nA. The experimental testing of the pre-cell detection system is based on counting the passage of ions through the transmission (ΔE) detector before hitting the stopping (E) detector placed behind it, to ensure the accurate delivery of specific doses of radiation to the sample. Optimal detection of the fabricated detectors for the passage of an external beam of 2.2 MeV protons was obtained by cooling the device to below 2°C. Cooling the ΔE detectors provides up to 20% better energy resolution and up to 98% detection efficiency for 2.2 MeV protons. The development of this kind of efficient pre-cell detector enables a range of new experiments to be conducted on thick biological samples.