Improving the Performance of HPHT-Diamond Detectors for Pulsed X-Ray Dosimetry Using the Synchronous Detection Technique

Abstract

A single-crystal diamond sample grown by high-pressure high-temperature (HPHT) technique was used for the fabrication of a metal–semiconductor–metal (MSM) photoconductor. The sample quality was evaluated by means of spectral photocurrent measurements highlighting the presence of a significant density of defect states within the diamond bandgap, responsible for trap-mediated conduction mechanisms. The photoconductor was fully characterized under 6 MeV pulsed X-rays, sourced by a medical linear accelerator (LINAC), in the 0.05–20 Gy and 0.017–0.100 Gy/s dose (D) and dose-rate (DR) ranges, respectively. Photocurrent measurements performed with a conventional precision electrometer showed that the detector performance is strongly affected by charge-trapping phenomena, resulting in a sublinear dependence with the DR (power-law dependence with an exponent of 0.86). Measurements were repeated in the same experimental conditions by coupling the detector to a specifically developed gated integrator, allowing for a synchronous integration of photocurrent pulses (limited to 40 <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mu$</tex-math> </inline-formula> </i> s) centered on each impinging X-ray pulse. In this case, the detector photoresponse showed an excellent linearity with both the D and the DR (power-law dependence with 1.0009 <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\pm$</tex-math> </inline-formula> 0.0004 and 1.009 <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\pm$</tex-math> </inline-formula> 0.005 exponents, respectively). Significantly, the proposed synchronous integration technique is then able to mitigate the detrimental effect that defects have on detector performance. The proposed method paves, therefore, the way to the exploitation of HPHT diamond as a low-cost alternative to single-crystal chemical vapor deposition (CVD)-diamond for the fabrication of accurate and linear X-ray dosimeters.