Time resolution of a SiGe BiCMOS monolithic silicon pixel detector without internal gain layer with a femtosecond laser

Abstract

The time resolution of the second monolithic silicon pixel prototype produced for the MONOLITH H2020 ERC Advanced project was studied using a femtosecond laser. The ASIC contains a matrix of hexagonal pixels with 100 μm pitch, readout by low-noise and very fast SiGe HBT frontend electronics. Silicon wafers with 50 μm thick epilayer with a resistivity of 350 Ωcm were used to produce a fully depleted sensor. At the highest frontend power density tested of 2.7 W/cm2, the time resolution with the femtosecond laser pulses was found to be 45 ps for signals generated by 1200 electrons, and 3 ps in the case of 11k electrons, which corresponds approximately to 0.4 and 3.5 times the most probable value of the charge generated by a minimum-ionizing particle. The results were compared with testbeam data taken with the same prototype to evaluate the time jitter produced by the fluctuations of the charge collection.