SBIR/STTR Award attributes
Nuclear physics research has a growing need for high performance devices to detect, analyze, and track photons, charged particles, and neutral particles such as neutrons, neutrinos, and single atoms. Accurately detecting the position, time, and rate of particles as they strike in high flux radiation environments like those in the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) is paramount to the success of current and future nuclear physics experiments. Much work has been performed with silicon and germanium to increase the detector efficiency and radiation hardness. However, their relatively narrow bandgaps present performance limitations and due to the relative ease with which silicon and germanium atoms can be displaced in their crystal lattice their ultimate lifetime is limited. New solid state detector technologies based on wide and ultra-wide bandgap semiconductor materials are of great interest. This project proposes a novel monolithic diamond detector technology with multiple ?E segments to measure the full energy loss curve versus depth of heavy ion penetration. The structure is a diamond detector formed by multiple layers of intrinsic detector grade diamond and thin layers of p+ electrically conducting diamond. Each p+/intrinsic/p+ layer set forms its own detector layer for measuring the energy deposited across the thickness of the intrinsic section. The design allows the intrinsic layer thicknesses to be either (1) the same or (2) a gradient of thicknesses versus depth of the heavy ion penetration. The ability to arbitrarily pick the number of detector layers and the thickness of each layer allows designs for specific nuclear physics applications. Phase I will prove the novel device concept and be tested on alpha particles. In Phase II FRIB will join the team and improved devices will be developed and then tested at FRIB for sensing heavy ions. A novel ?E-?E-E diamond detector will be designed and produced using advanced microwave plasma assisted chemical vapor deposition (CVD) technology which has been developed at Michigan State University and licensed to Great Lakes Crystal Technologies (GLCT). Advent Technologies will assist in the device fabrication. Final devices will be tested at GLCT at the benchtop level using a commercial source of alpha particles. Success in the proposed effort will lead to improved detector technologies for use at FRIB and other leading high energy research laboratories worldwide. This in turn will accelerate the progress of nuclear physics research which has since its early days provided incredible payoffs to society, including advances in cancer therapy, diagnostic instrumentation, homeland security monitoring, industrial power transmission, biomedicine and drug development, understanding turbulence for industrial applications, advanced protein analysis, and much more.
