Epitaxy — a new technology for fabrication of advanced silicon radiation detectors

Twenty five years after the introduction of the planar process to the fabrication of silicon radiation detectors a new technology, which replaces the ion implantation doping by silicon epitaxy is presented. The power of this new technique is demonstrated by fabrication of silicon drift detectors (SDDs), whereby both the n-type and p-type implants are replaced by n-type and p-type epi-layers. The very first SDDs ever produced with this technique show energy resolutions of 150 eV for 55Fe at −35 °C. The area of the detectors is 10 mm2 and the thickness 300 μm. The high potential of epitaxy for future detectors with integrated complex electronics is described.