Response of materials to single ion events

Abstract

Response of materials to single radiation events is fundamental to research and many technological applications that involve energetic particles. Ion–solid interactions lead to energy loss of ions, production of electron–hole pairs, and light emission from excitation-induced luminescence. Employing a unique time-of-flight system, material response to single ion irradiation has been utilized to measure electronic energy loss, and to evaluate materials performance for radiation detection. Measurements of electronic energy loss of single ions in a thin ZrO2 foil over a continuous energy range exhibit good agreement with SRIM predictions for He and Be ions. For O and F ions, slight over- and under-estimation of SRIM prediction is evident at energies around 250 (near the stopping maximum) and above 800keV/nucleon, respectively. For a Si semiconductor detector, its response to single ion irradiation shows that pulse height defect is clear for elements heavier than Si, and nonlinear energy response is significant for all elements at energies below ∼100keV/nucleon. For a single crystal CsI:Tl scintillator, the response to H ion events is used to determine relative light yield and absolute energy resolution over a wide energy region, where energy resolution of ∼5.3% is achieved at 2MeV.