FACHVORTRGE II: Efrom LEKTROMAGNETIK Excerpt the Proceedings of the COMSOL Users Conference 2006 Frankfurt

Charge Carrier Motion in Semiconductors

Bjrn Kreisler, Gisela Anton, Jrgen Durst, Thilo Michel
Physikalisches Institut Abt.IV, Erwin-Rommel-Strae 1, D-91058 Erlangen, bjoern.kreisler@physik.uni-erlangen.de.

Abstract The motion of free charge carriers in semiconductors was simulated using the convection and diffusion module in COMSOL. The focus of this work is the sensor layer of the Medipix2 x-ray detector, in our case made of silicon. The charge cloud generated by photon interactions within the sensor material moves through the material due to an applied electric field. The charges are collected by the pixel electrodes attached to the bottom of the sensor layer. The Medipix2 readout ASIC is designed to count single photon interactions and therefore each pixel triggers on the collected charge. The distribution of the charge between the electrodes is the main topic of this work. The interaction point of the x-ray photon in the sensor material, i.e. the staring point of the charge cloud, was varied and the different charge distributions on the electrodes were calculated. Keywords diffusion, charge sharing, semiconductor, x-ray detector, Medipix, photon counting

speed v = mu*E where mu is the mobility constant of the charges in the semiconductor. For very high electric fields, the mobility constant may not be a constant any more, but this effect can be modelled by fitting a curve to the measured mobility. The isotropic diffusion process leads to a broadening of the charge cloud. The driving equation for the conservative diffusion process of a concentration c is

where D is the diffusion coefficient of the material. 2.2 Methods and Numerical Model The free charges in the semiconductor were simulated by moving a concentration with properties like charges. The concentration was given a specific mobility and diffusion constant. Special care has to be taken of the initial concentration distribution. As the diffusion process is heavily dependent on the gradient of the concentration, no sharp edges and discontinuities are allowed. In the work presented here, the initial concentration was modelled by a shifted cosine which was cut at the first minimum:

1. Introduction
X-ray imaging is a state of the art technique for medical diagnostics, as insights of the human body are possible without surgery. For these insights, specially resolved detection of the transmitted x-ray photons is necessary. The detection can be done with films, gas detectors, scintillation detectors and direct converting semiconductor detectors. The detection efficiency of film is rather bad and as the linear regime of the intensity projection is quite poor, the future is pointed to the direct converting semiconductor detectors. In those detectors, x-ray photons are converted to free moving charges in a semiconductor sensor layer. These free moving charges drift through the sensor material due to a externally applied electric field. The time it takes the charge cloud to reach the pixelated electrode attached to the bottom of the sensor layer enables the charge cloud to broaden its diameter due to diffusion. The spatial resolution of the detection is therefore strongly dependent on the size of the pixels and on the distribution of the charge on the pixelated electrode.

where r=x-x0 and r0 is the maximal radius of the initial concentration distribution. The variable A allows to control the total amount of charge to be simulated. The sampling rate needs to be of a very good quality for assuring the continuity. The simulation of the charge motion starts with the static calculation of the electric field in the sensor layer with the electrostatic module of COMSOL. The boundary conditions need to be chosen reasonably. In the work presented here, the geometric setup allows the use of the symmetry of the electric field with respect to the centre of the pixel electrode. The motion of the concentration was coupled to this electric field by linking the components of the velocity to the components of local electric field. As mentioned above, the mobility constant needs to be approximated by a function due to the saturation of the velocity for very high electric fields. The diffusion of the concentration due to concentration gradients was taken into account by applying an isotropic diffusion constant. Direct electrostatic repulsion of the charges inside the charge cloud was neglected, as the force between the charges is screened by the sensor material even at very short distances. The boundaries for COMSOL ANWENDERKONFERENZ 2006

2. Simulation
2.1 Governing Equations The motion of the charge cloud in the semiconductor is governed by drift and diffusion. The applied electric field E across the sensor layer results in a drift motion of the charges with direction to the pixelated electrodes and a SEITE 64

FACHVORTRGE ELEKTROMAGNETIK Excerpt II: from the Proceedings of the COMSOL Users Conference 2006 Frankfurt
the concentration calculation were all set to a fixed concentration of zero. This allows time dependent studies of the motion of the initial concentration until it touches the boundaries.

3. Results
The direction and speed of the simulated charge cloud motion agree with the expectations. In picture 1, intermediate steps of the time dependent solution of the motion are displayed. The drift motion is clearly visible, and the distance the concentration peak moves matches with the expected range due to the mobility estimation. The broadening of the charge cloud due to diffusion processes can be observed best when looking at its cross section. In picture 2, cross sections through the centre of the charge clouds are shown. The x-axis is displayed in units of micro meters, and the y-axis shows a standardised number of particles. The standardised charge cloud moves from its starting point at 250m to the right. The time step between two cross sections is 1ns. The centre of the cross section moves due to the electric field. The width increases due to diffusion as strongly as the height decreases. The integrated area under a cross section a measure for the number of particles stays approximately the same, as the number of particles only decreases slowly with time due to trapping and recombination. These two effects are simulated by an exponential function which reduces of the total amount of charges in the volume. The starting position of the charge cloud was varied to study the different charge distributions close to the pixelated electrode on the bottom. In picture 3, the splitting of the charge cloud can clearly be seen as the cloud reaches the pixelated electrode. The starting point in this simulation is set on the edge between two pixels. In this case, the charge is collected by both: the electrode on the left hand side and on the right hand side of the staring point. This sharing effect leads to multiple detections or no detections at all, as the amount of charge collected by one of the electrodes may not be sufficient to trigger a count in the electronics behind the electrode.

Picture 1. Time steps of 1ns separate the image from each other.

Picture 2. Cross sections of the moving charge cloud. The time steps between the cross sections are equally spaced.

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FACHVORTRGE II: Efrom LEKTROMAGNETIK Excerpt the Proceedings of the COMSOL Users Conference 2006 Frankfurt
4. Discussion and Conclusion
For medical imaging, each transmitted x-ray photon needs to be detected with the best possible spatial resolution. Xray films offer a resolution on a molecular scale, but have a very poor detection efficiency and a small linear regime for good image quality. To overcome these disadvantages, direct converting photon counting detectors like the Medipix2 detector look very promising. The way to an equally good resolution as films is to use smaller pixels. On the other hand, very small pixel suffer from physical effects as the area close to the pixel edge gains a larger portion of the actual pixel area. In this area, parts of the generated charge can diffuse into neighbouring pixels and hence, degrade the spatial resolution given by the small pixels. To find an optimum of the possible resolution with a certain material, it is helpful to simulate the charge cloud motion inside the sensor layer. Literature [1] Canali et al., Drift Velocity of Electrons and Holes and Associated Anisotropic Effects in Silicon, Journal of Physics and Chemistry of Solids, 32:1707 (1971). [2] Mitschke, Evaluation of Different Sensor Materials for the Medipix X-ray Detector, Phd-Thesis, University of Erlangen (2006). [3] Spieler/Haller, Assessment of Present and Future Large-Scale Semiconductor Detector Systems, IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci., 32:419-426 (1985).

Picture 3. Starting point between two electrodes.

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