Charged Particle Detection

SILICON CHARGED PARTICLE DETECTORS Silicon Charged Particle detectors have a P-I-N structure in which a depletion region is formed by applying reverse bias, with the resultant electric eld collecting the electron-hole pairs produced by an incident charged particle. The resistivity of the silicon must be high enough to allow a large enough depletion region at moderate bias voltages. A traditional example of this type of detector is the Silicon Surface Barrier (SSB) detector. In this detector, the n-type silicon has a gold surface-barrier contact as the positive contact, and deposited aluminum is used at the back of the detector as the ohmic contact.
A modern version of the charged particle detector is the CANBERRA PIPS detector (Passivated Implanted Planar Silicon). This detector employs implanted rather than surface barrier contacts and is therefore more rugged and reliable than the Silicon Surface Barrier (SSB) detector it replaces. At the junction there is a repulsion of majority carriers (electrons in the n-type and holes in p-type) so that a depleted region exists. An applied reverse bias widens this depleted region which is the sensitive detector volume, and can be extended to the limit of breakdown voltage. Detectors are generally available with depletion depths of 100 to 700 m. Detectors are specied in terms of surface area and alpha or beta particle resolution as well as depletion depth. The resolution depends largely upon detector size, being best for small area detectors. Alpha resolution of 12 to 35 keV and beta resolutions of 6 to 30 keV are typical. Areas of 25 to 5000 mm2 are available as standard, with larger detectors available in various geometries for custom applications. Additionally, PIPS detectors are available fully depleted, so that a dE/dx energy loss measurement can be made by stacking detectors on axis. Detectors for this application are supplied in a transmission mount, (i.e. with the bias connector on the side of the detector). A chart of the energies of various particles measured at several depletion depths is shown in Table 1.3. Note that even the thinnest detector is adequate for alpha particles from radioactive sources, but that only very low energy electrons are fully absorbed. However, for a detector viewing a source of electron lines, such as conversion electron lines, sharp peaks will be observed since some electron path lengths will lie fully in depleted region. Figure 1.10 shows ranges of particles commonly occurring in nuclear reactions.
Table 1.3 Particle Ranges and PIPS Depletion Depth Maximum Particle Energy Depletion Depth (Range) in m Electron Proton Alpha

Figure 1.10 Range-Energy Curves in Silicon Figure 1.11 illustrates the electronics used in single-input alpha spectroscopy application. Note that the sample and detector are located inside a vacuum chamber so that the energy loss in air is not involved.

LIQUID SCINTILLATORS Two very important beta-emitting isotopes, tritium and 14C, have very low energy beta rays. These are at 19 and 156 keV respectively, too low to detect reliably with solid scintillators. The liquid scintillation technique involves mixing a liquid scintillator with the sample, and then observing the light pulses with one or more photomultiplier tubes. The efciency of such a counter is virtually 100% essentially 4 geometry with no attenuation between source and detector. Pulse processing of the resultant Photomultiplier outputs allows the rejection of cosmic events, and the separation, if desired, of alpha and beta events. The increased sensitivity of the Liquid Scintillation counter, coupled with advances in sample preparation techniques, has led to its increasing use for low-level alpha and beta measurements.

100 300 500 700 1000

0.15 0.31 0.45 0.52 0.73

7 15 21 27 33

15 55 85 105 130

Since charge collected from the particle ionization is so small that it is impractical to use the resultant pulses without intermediate amplication, a charge-sensitive preamplier is used to initially prepare the signal.
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Figure 1.11
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