Compton diodes as diagnostic tools in accelerator operation

We report on the development and application of robust, inexpensive bremsstrahlung detectors, so called Compton diodes, for a photon energy from 5 MeV to more than 130 MeV. The detector signal is estimated from a simple analytical model and compared with a more quantitative description of the detector behaviour obtained from numerical simulations and with experimental results for photon energies between 6 and 72 MeV. For the S-DALINAC, a beam loss monitoring system using Compton diodes as detectors has been designed and installed. The detectors were also used for other applications like the investigation of dark current emission from the superconducting cavities at the TESLA Test Facility (TTF) at DESY.