Analytical approximations of the Lindhard equations describing radiation effects

Starting from the general Lindhard theory describing the partition of particles energy in materials between ionisation and displacements, analytical approximate solutions have been derived, for media containing one and more atomic species, for particles identical and different to the medium ones. Particular cases, and the limits of these equations at very high energies are discussed.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, latex2e, submitted to Nucl. Instr. Meth. in Phys. Res.

Theoretical calculations of the primary defects induced by pions and protons in SiC

In the present work, the bulk degradation of SiC in hadron (pion and proton) fields, in the energy range between 100 MeV and 10 GeV, is characterised theoretically by means of the concentration of primary defects per unit fluence. The results are compared to the similar ones corresponding to diamond, silicon and GaAs.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures, in press to Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A v2 - modified title, and major revision

Annealing of radiation induced defects in silicon in a simplified phenomenological model

The concentration of primary radiation induced defects has been previously estimated considering both the explicit mechanisms of the primary interaction between the incoming particle and the nuclei of the semiconductor lattice, and the recoil energy partition between ionisation and displacements, in the frame of the Lindhard theory. The primary displacement defects are vacancies and interstitials, that are essentially unstable in silicon. They interact via migration, recombination, annihilation or produce other defects. In the present work, the time evolution of the concentration of defects induced by pions in medium and high resistivity silicon for detectors is modelled, after irradiation. In some approximations, the differential equations representing the time evolution processes could be decoupled. The theoretical equations so obtained are solved analytically in some particular cases, with one free parameter, for a wide range of particle fluences and/or for a wide energy range of the incident particles, for different temperatures; the corresponding stationary solutions are also presented.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, accepted to Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B second version, major revisio

Correlation between radiation processes in silicon and long-time degradation of detectors for high energy physics experiments

In this contribution, the correlation between fundamental interaction processes induced by radiation in silicon and observable effects which limit the use of silicon detectors in high energy physics experiments is investigated in the frame of a phenomenological model which includes: generation of primary defects at irradiation starting from elementary interactions in silicon; kinetics of defects, effects at the p-n junction detector level. The effects due to irradiating particles (pions, protons, neutrons), to their flux, to the anisotropy of the threshold energy in silicon, to the impurity concentrations and resistivity of the starting material are investigated as time, fluence and temperature dependences of detector characteristics. The expected degradation of the electrical parameters of detectors in the complex hadron background fields at LHC & SLHC are predicted.Comment: prepared for the 10th International Symposium on Radiation Physics, 17-22 September, 2006, Coimbra, Portuga