Silicon Detectors for Low Energy Particle Detection

Author

Tindall, C.S. ; Palaio, N.P. ; Ludewigt, B.A. ; Holland, S.E. ; Larson, D.E. ; Curtis, D.W. ; McBride, S.E. ; Moreau, T. ; Lin, R.P. ; Angelopoulos, V.

Author_Institution

Lawrence Berkeley Nat. Lab., Berkeley, CA

Volume

55

Issue

2

fYear

2008

fDate

4/1/2008 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

797

Lastpage

801

Abstract

Silicon detectors with very thin entrance contacts have been fabricated for use in the IMPACT SupraThermal Electron (STE) instrument on the STEREO mission and for the Solid State Telescopes on the THEMIS mission. The silicon diode detectors were fabricated using a 200 Aring thick phosphorous doped polysilicon layer that formed the thin entrance window. A 200 Aring thick aluminum layer was deposited on top of the polysilicon in order to reduce their response to stray light. Energy loss in the entrance contact was about 350 eV for electrons and about 2.3 keV for protons. The highest detector yield was obtained using a process in which the thick polysilicon gettering layer was removed by chemical etching rather than chemical mechanical polishing.

Keywords

chemical mechanical polishing; doping; electron detection; energy loss of particles; etching; getters; silicon radiation detectors; stray light; telescopes; IMPACT SupraThermal Electron instrument; STE instrument; STEREO mission; THEMIS mission; aluminum layer; chemical etching; chemical mechanical polishing; doping; energy loss; low energy particle detection; phosphorous; polysilicon gettering layer; silicon diode detectors; solid state telescopes; stray light; Aluminum; Chemical processes; Electrons; Energy loss; Envelope detectors; Instruments; Silicon; Solid state circuits; Stray light; Telescopes; Electron detectors; proton detectors; silicon radiation detectors; solar radiation;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Nuclear Science, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9499

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TNS.2008.918527

Filename

4484242