Monocrystalline Diamond for Ions Detection at Low and High Fluxes

Abstract

A chemical vapor deposition monocrystalline diamond is characterized to be employed as detector of ions coming from different sources of low and high fluxes. The energy resolution is comparable to that of traditional surface barrier silicon detectors, while the response velocity is higher. The use of detection electronic maintaining high proportionality between the ion energy and the detector signal occurs up to an ion flux theoretically evaluated of about $8 \times 10^{\mathrm {{6}}}$ ions/cm $^{{ {2}}}\cdot \text{s}$ . By connecting the detector in time-of-flight configuration, it is possible to use the detector at higher fluxes, such as for laser-generated plasma diagnostics. Typical experiments of diamond plasma diagnostics, using subnanosecond laser operating at $10^{\mathrm { {16}}}$ W/cm2 intensity, are presented. Diamond can be employed with success at fluence of the order of $10^{\mathrm {{12}}}$ ions/cm2 per laser pulse to evaluate the ion energy, separating photons by electrons and by ions. The diamond detector diagnostics coupled to other detection techniques permit to characterize very fast plasma pulses, as it will be presented and discussed.