To prevent excessive radiation damage to its Silicon Vertex Tracker, the BaBar experiment at SLAC uses a radiation monitoring and protection system that triggers a beam abort whenever radiation levels are anomalously high. The existing system, which employs large area Si PIN diodes as radiation sensors, has become increasingly difficult to operate due to radiation damage.
We have studied CVD diamond sensors as a potential alternative for these silicon sensors. Two diamond sensors have been routinely used since their installation in the Vertex Tracker in August 2002. The experience with these sensors and a variety of tests in the laboratory have shown CVD diamonds to be a viable solution for dosimetry in high radiation environments. However, our studies have also revealed surprising side-effects.
We report on performance of chemical vapor deposited (CVD) single crystal diamond plates as side bounce monochromators for high photon energies ($\gtrsim$~20 keV) in the Laue geometry. Several crystals were tested in-operando high-heat-load conditions at A1 undulator station of Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source. Up to 10$\times$ enhancement in the reflected x-ray flux was observed compared to that delivered by IIa diamond plates grown by high-pressure high-temperature method. Wavefront distortions were measured using analyzer-based x-ray diffraction imaging. Focusing of a portion of the r…
A pixel detector with a CVD diamond sensor has been studied in a 180 GeV/c pion beam. The charge collection properties of the diamond sensor were studied as a function of the track position, which was measured with a silicon microstrip telescope. Non-uniformities were observed on a length scale comparable to the diamond crystallites size. In some regions of the sensor, the charge drift appears to have a component parallel to the sensor surface (i.e., normal to the applied electric field) resulting in systematic residuals between the track position and the hits position as large as 40 $μ$m. A n…
High radiation hardness, chemical resistance, high temperature operation capabilities stimulate a growing interest to use diamond materials as detectors of ionizing radiation. Samples of CVD-diamond materials in sizes 12 square mm and 4 square mm with thickness from 50 microns up to 500 microns have been grown in INR RAS using a DC glow discharge in a mixture of gases CH4/H2 on molybdenum substrates.
Orientation effect of increasing the enhancement factor of DD reaction in CVD-Diamond was investigated by simulation. It is obtained that the flux peaking effect up to 2.2 times increases the relative enhancement factor for a parallel beam and up to 1.2 times for the deuteron beam with angular divergence equals 3 critical channeling angles. Qualitative agreement with the experiment was obtained.
Gas electron multiplier (GEM) is widely used in modern gas detectors of ionizing radiation in experiments on high-energy physics at accelerators and in other fields of science. Typically the GEM devices are based on a dielectric foil with holes and electrodes on both sides. GEMs made by radiation-hard dielectrics or wide band-gap semiconductors are desirable for some applications. The results of the first tests of the gas electron multiplier made of radiation-hard materials, such as polycrystalline CVD diamond with a thickness of 100 microns is described. Here we report on fabrication of GEM b…
A high-performance fast response deep ultraviolet (UV) photodetectors with interdigitated Ti/Au planar electrodes using a lithography technology has fabricated on homoepitaxial diamond. The device shows a high ultraviolet photocurrent at 213 nm, which is eight orders of magnitude higher than the dark current at the bias voltages of 30 V. In addition, the time-resolved photoresponse measurements using a mechanical method and a pulsed 213 nm laser show that a good cycling, low persistent photoconductivity, and transient time-resolved response of up to 2.4 ns.
The resistivity of polycrystalline chemical vapor deposition diamond sensors is studied in samples exposed to fluences relevant to the environment of the High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider. We measure the leakage current for a range of bias voltages on samples irradiated with 800 MeV protons up to 1.6\times 10^{16} p/cm^2. The proton beam at LANSCE, Los Alamos National Laboratory, was applied to irradiate the samples. The devices' resistivity is extracted for temperatures in the -10^\circC to +20^\circC range.
At the n\_TOF experiment at CERN a dedicated single-crystal chemical vapor deposition (sCVD) Diamond Mosaic-Detector has been developed for (n,$α$) cross-section measurements. The detector, characterized by an excellent time and energy resolution, consists of an array of 9 sCVD diamond diodes. The detector has been characterized and a cross-section measurement has been performed for the $^{59}$Ni(n,$α$)$^{56}$Fe reaction in 2012. The characteristics of the detector, its performance and the promising preliminary results of the experiment are presented.
At the ion accelerator HELIS at the LPI, the neutron yield is investigated in DD reactions within a polycrystalline deuterium-saturated CVD diamond, during an irradiation of its surface by a deuterium ion beam with the energy less than 30 keV. The measurements of the neutron flux in the beam direction are performed in dependence on the target angle, \b{eta}, with respect to the beam axis. These measurements are performed using a multichannel detector based on He3 counters. A significant anisotropy in neutron yield is observed, it was higher by a factor of 3 at \b{eta}=0 compared to that at \b{…
This article introduces a design of a Low Noise Amplifier (LNA), for the field of diamond particle detectors. This amplifier is described from simulation to measurements, which include pulses from α particles detection. In hadron therapy, with high-frequency pulsed particle beams, the diamond detector is a promising candidate for beam monitoring and time-stamping, with prerequisite of fast electronics. The LNA is designed with surface mounted components and RF layout techniques to control costs and to allow timing performance suitable for sub-nanosecond edges of pulses. Also this amplifier off…
Diamond is a material in use at many nuclear and high energy facilities due to its inherent radiation tolerance and ease of use. We have characterized detectors based on chemical vapor deposition (CVD) diamond before and after proton irradiation. We present preliminary results of the spatial resolution of unirradiated and irradiated CVD diamond strip sensors. In addition, we measured the pulse height versus particle rate of unirradiated and irradiated polycrystalline CVD (pCVD) diamond pad detectors up to a particle flux of $20\,\mathrm{MHz/cm^2}$ and a fluence up to $4 \times 10^{15}\,n/\math…
In the context of online ion range verification in particle therapy, the CLaRyS collaboration is developing Prompt-Gamma (PG) detection systems. The originality in the CLaRyS approach is to use a beam-tagging hodoscope in coincidence with the gamma detectors to provide both temporal and spatial information of the incoming ions. The ion range sensitivity of such PG detection systems could be improved by detecting single ions with a 100 ps ($σ$) time resolution, through a quality assurance procedure at low beam intensity at the beginning of the treatment session. This work presents the investiga…
The Belle-II VerteX Detector (VXD) is a 6 layers silicon tracker device that will cope with an unprecedented luminosity of 8 x 10^35 cm-2 s-1 achievable by the new SuperKEKB e+e- collider, now under commissioning at the KEK laboratory (Tsukuba, Japan). A radiation monitoring and beam abort system has been developed based on single-crystal s-CVD diamond sensors. The sensors will be placed in 20 key positions in the vicinity of the interaction region. The severe space limitations require a remote readout of the sensors. In this contribution we present the system design, along with the sensor cha…
Diamonds offer radiation hard sensors, which can be used directly in primary beams. Here we report on the use of a polycrystalline CVD diamond strip sensor as beam monitor of heavy ion beams with up to 2.10^9 lead ions per bunch. The strips allow for a determination of the transverse beam profile to a fraction of the pitch of the strips, while the timing information yields the longitudinal bunch length with a resolution of the order of a few mm.
The Belle II detector is currently under construction at the SuperKEKB electron-positron high-luminosity collider, that will provide an instantaneous luminosity 40 times higher than that of KEKB. There- fore the Belle-II VerteX Detector (VXD) will operate in a very harsh environment. A radiation monitoring and beam abort system is needed to safely operate the VXD detector in these conditions. This system is based on 20 single crystal CVD diamond sensors placed in 20 key positions in the vicinity of the VXD and interaction region. In this contribution we describe the system design and we presen…
With the commissioning of the LHC expected in 2009, and the LHC upgrades expected in 2012, ATLAS and CMS are planning for detector upgrades for their innermost layers requiring radiation hard technologies. Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) diamond has been used extensively in beam conditions monitors as the innermost detectors in the highest radiation areas of BaBar, Belle and CDF and is now planned for all LHC experiments. This material is now being considered as an alternate sensor for use very close to the interaction region of the super LHC where the most extreme radiation conditions will ex…
Diamonds are very promising candidates for the neutron diagnostics in harsh environments such as fusion reactor. In the first place this is because of their radiation hardness, exceeding that of Silicon by an order of magnitude. Also, in comparison to the standard on-line neutron diagnostics (fission chambers, silicon based detectors, scintillators), diamonds are less sensitive to $γ$ rays, which represent a huge background in fusion devices. Finally, their low leakage current at high temperature suppresses the detector intrinsic noise. In this talk a CVD diamond based detector has been propos…
CVD diamond is an attractive material option for LHC vertex detectors because of its strong radiation-hardness causal to its large band gap and strong lattice. In particular, pixel detectors operating close to the interaction point profit from tiny leakage currents and small pixel capacitances of diamond resulting in low noise figures when compared to silicon. On the other hand, the charge signal from traversing high energy particles is smaller in diamond than in silicon by a factor of about 2.2. Therefore, a quantitative determination of the signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) of diamond in compariso…
