ARTICLE IN PRESS

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A 546 (2005) 291–295

www.elsevier.com/locate/nima

Analysis and simulation of charge collection efficiency in

silicon thin detectors
M. Petaseccaa,b,, F. Moscatellia,b,c, G.U. Pignatela,b
a
DIEI, University of Perugia, via G. Duranti, 93, 06125 Perugia, Italy
b
INFN sez. Perugia, via Pascoli, 10, 06100 Perugia, Italy
c
IMM-CNR sez. Bologna, via Gobetti, 101, 04129 Bologna, Italy
Available online 7 April 2005

Abstract

Thin detectors have been proposed to investigate the possibility to limit the full depletion voltage and the leakage
current of heavily irradiated silicon devices. In this work we compare typical silicon detectors (p–n junctions over a
300 mm thick substrate) with thinned devices (50–100 mm of thickness). In order to investigate the performances of these
structures, simulations have been carried out using the ISE-TCAD DESSIS device simulator. The so called three-level
model has been used to investigate the effects of the radiation fluence on charge collection efficiency of thin and thick
silicon structures. For each thickness, we simulate the hit of a minimum ionizing particle and then we calculate the
current at the diode’s electrode. We consider a 7
1011 cm3 n-doped substrate (a high resistivity substrate); all the
structures are composed of a 40 mm diode contact and a 15 mm distant guard ring. The simulated collected charge of the
300 mm diode is in agreement with the experimental results; the simulation of thinner structures (50–100 mm) shows a
saturation of the number of e–h pairs collected at the diode’s electrodes. These results suggest that thin detectors may
have a better performance at higher fluences than thick ones. They are maximizing the collected charge at lower
depletion voltage.
r 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

PACS: 29.40.Wk

Keywords: Simulation; Silicon detectors; Charge collection efficiency; Radiation hardness

1. Introduction

Previous studies have shown that heavy irradia-

Corresponding author. DIEI, University of Perugia, via G.
Duranti, 93, 06125 Perugia, Italy. Tel.: +39 075 585 3644; fax:
+39 075 585 3654.
E-mail address: petasecca@diei.unipg.it (M. Petasecca).
tion of silicon detectors can result in severe
deterioration of their electrical characteristics [1].
The option to upgrade the luminosity of the Large
Hadron Collider reactor operating at CERN-CH

0168-9002/$ - see front matter r 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.nima.2005.03.051
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292 M. Petasecca et al. / Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A 546 (2005) 291–295
will involve radiation fluences of fast hadrons
above 1016 cm2. Current silicon technology is
unable to cope with such an environment. The
effect of such heavy irradiation is the increase in
leakage current, increase of the charge trapping
and change of the effective doping concentration
[2] of the silicon sensors. In the framework of
RD50 collaboration, it has been proposed to
investigate the use of thin silicon detectors with
the aim to have low depletion voltages and less
leakage currents. The present work shows the
preliminary simulation results, carried out by
means of the ISE-TCAD DESSIS [3] simulation
tool, for comparison between the irradiated and
non-irradiated standard (thick) and thin silicon
detectors. The radiation damage effects are simu-
lated by exploiting the so called three-level
radiation damage model [4,7]. In particular, we
highlight the effects of lower depletion voltages
and higher charge collection efficiency (CCE) in
irradiated and non-irradiated structures as a
function of the fluence.
2. The three-level radiation damage model
Highly energetic ionizing particles interact with
the substrate and generate electron–hole pairs
along their path, crossing a silicon detector. If
the hitting particle has enough energy, a lattice
atom can be displaced from its original position
(PKA or Primary Knock-on Atom). After that an
interstitial and a vacancy are created. This type of
defect is referred to as a Frenkel pair. Most of
these pairs quickly recombine themselves; a
significant portion of them produces electrically
active defects that act as recombination-generation
centers in the band gap [6]. The most important
defects have been identified as the divacancy V2,
the divacancy-oxygen complex V2O and the CiOi
complex, on account of their high introduction
rates and relative proximity to mid-gap [2,5]. The
divacancy and the CiOi complex play an important
role in simulation setup because they determine the
macroscopic behavior of radiation-damaged de-
tectors in terms of type inversion and leakage
current increase.
Table 1
Parameters of defects included in the simulation with the three-
level model
Acceptor Acceptor Donor
E EC–0.42 eV EC–0.55 eV EV+0.36 eV
sn 2.11
1016 cm2 1016 cm2 1015 cm2
sp 1
1014 cm2 1015 cm2 1016 cm2
Z 1 cm1 0.08 cm1 1 cm1
For simulation purposes we have considered the
so called three-level model [4]. The three levels are
related, with two acceptor levels located at
E C 20:42 eV (V0/
2 ) and E C 20:55 eV (V2O
0/
),
[8] and a donor level located at E V þ 0:36 eV
(CiO+/0
i ). We also considered a donor removal
mechanism with a removal rate based on the work
of Moll [2]. The compensation of this effect is
obtained by increasing the introduction rate of the
divacancy. In addition, an enhanced capture cross-
section is used for the first acceptor level, increas-
ing it to a value of 1014 cm2, instead of an
experimental value 2
1015 cm2 [2]. The complete
set of defect properties included in the simulation
is summarized in Table 1. With the parameters
quoted in Table 1, we have obtained a damage
constant, a, of 5.3
1017 A cm1, which is in
satisfactory agreement with values reported in
literature [2].
3. Simulation setup
To analyze thin and thick detectors, we consider
simple, two dimensional p þ =n=nþ structures
with a substrate doping concentration N D ¼ 7

1011 cm3 corresponding to a resistivity of
6 kO cm. A 1 mm deep pþ implant (Gaussian
profile) for the pþ guard ring has been adopted.
The simulated structure consists in a simple diode
of 40 mm in width, surrounded by a 6 mm wide
guard ring, 15 mm apart (Fig. 1). The guard ring is
necessary to obtain a uniform electric field
distribution underneath the diode junction. We
simulate devices with different thickness (D in
Fig. 1), corresponding to thin (50 and 100 mm) and
thick (300 mm) detectors. The radiation’s effect due
to charge built up at the Si/SiO2 interface has been
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M. Petasecca et al. / Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A 546 (2005) 291–295 293

taken into account with the definition of a acceptor-like defects overwhelm the substrate n-
different charge oxide concentrations in non- type doping concentration. The calculated type-
irradiated (4
1011 cm3 ) and irradiated inversion fluence of 5
1012 cm2 is in agreement
12 3
(1
10 cm ) devices, respectively. with what is reported in literature [2].
Considering the variation of the depletion
voltage as a function of the fluence, Fig. 2 shows
4. Simulation results that the advantages of the thin detector is to
operate in full depleted conditions at very high
First of all, we calculated the depletion voltage fluences with low bias voltages. In order to analyze
changes as a function of the fluence for two the behavior of thin detectors at very high fluences,
different thicknesses. Fig. 2 shows the effect of we have carried out Simulations of CCE as a
type inversion of the silicon detector at a fluence. function of the fluence.
A zero depletion voltage means a perfectly In Fig. 3 the simulated CCE values with the
compensated substrate. After this point, the experimental data [9] are compared at fluences of
1
1014 (1 MeV) neutron/cm2 and 2.5
1014 neu-
tron/cm2, respectively. The simulations well repro-
Guard Guard
Ring Diode Ring duce the experimental results; then, using the same
15um model and structure, we extended the simulation
9um to thin and thick diodes at fluences of 1015 and
40 um
1016 (1 MeV) n/cm2. In Fig. 4 the collected charge
6um as a function of the applied voltage and thickness
of the detector is reported.
In terms of CCE, the simulation at 1015 n/cm2
D

shows that, at 150–200 V of bias voltage, a thin

Back
Fig. 1. (a) Simulated diode structure: D represents the thickness
of the detectors which, in our simulations, is variable in the
range between 20 and 300 mm.
detector has a CCE of about 80% while thick
diodes have only 50%. A maximum efficiency of
73% for thick diodes can be obtained only at a
bias voltage of 1000 V. However, this operating
condition is intolerable for thick detectors because
they exhibit a high leakage current and a high risk
of breakdown. The ratio between the collected
charge of a 300 mm thick detector and a 50 mm
thick diode is Q(300 mm)/Q(50 mm)E6: this means

Fig. 2. Comparison between the depletion voltages of thick (a) and thin (b) diodes.
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294 M. Petasecca et al. / Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A 546 (2005) 291–295

Fig. 3. Comparison between the experimental and simulated Charge Collection Efficiency for a thick detector at a fluence of
1
1014 n/cm2 (a) and of 2.5
1014 n/cm2 (b).

Fig. 4. Comparison between collected charge as function of the applied bias voltage for various detector’s thicknesses.

that the effect of shorter trapping time due to the
high defect density, is not yet relevant at this
fluence [10]. The simulation at 1016 n/cm2, instead,
shows that CCE of 300 mm thick diode saturates at
30% with a ratio Q(300 mm)/Q(50 mm) of 2.6: it
means that, at this fluence, the recombination
mechanism due to the radiation defects become
more effective although the total collected charge
of a thin detector is still about one-half of that of a
thick one.
5. Conclusions
In the framework of RD50 collaboration, we
performed a set of simulations to understand the
behavior of thinned detectors.
The comparison between depletion voltages
and CCE in the thin detectors, as compared
with the thick ones, shows that the most remark-
able result obtainable using thinned devices
is a full depletion voltage lower than 160 V at a
fluence of 1016 cm2. As far as the CCE is
concerned, a good fitting of simulations with
experimental data is obtained for fluences up to
2.5
1014 cm2. For higher fluences the ISE T-
CAD simulation model does not show the
expected saturation effect of trapping time and
recombination length. In the next future, this latter
point will be investigated, and simulation data
will be compared with the experimental results
obtained from the electrical characterizations and
the CCE measurements of thin diodes irradiated
up to 1016 n/cm2.
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