Effects of nuclear fusion produced neutrons on silicon semiconductor plasma X-ray detectors

The effects of nuclear fusion produced neutrons on the X-ray energy responses of semiconductor detectors are characterized. The degradation of the response of position-sensitive X-ray tomography detectors in the Joint European Torus (JET) tokamak is found after neutron exposure produced by deuterium–deuterium and deuterium–tritium plasma fusion experiments. For the purpose of further detailed characterization of the neutron degradation effects, an azimuthally varying-field (AVF) cyclotron accelerator is employed using well-calibrated neutron fluence. These neutron effects on the detector responses are characterized using synchrotron radiation from a 2.5 GeV positron storage ring at the Photon Factory (KEK). The effects of neutrons on X-ray sensitive semiconductor depletion thicknesses are also investigated using an impedance analyser. Novel findings of (i) the dependence of the response degradation on X-ray energies as well as (ii) the recovery of the degraded detector response due to the detector bias application are found and interpreted by systematically combined methods using a synchrotron facility, a cyclotron facility, a fusion plasma device, material analysis methods along with our recent theory on semiconductor X-ray responses.