A Monolithic active pixel sensor for ionizing radiation using a 180nm HV-SOI process

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel monolithic active pixel sensor fabricated with 180nm HV-SOI technology, demonstrating improved radiation tolerance and fast charge collection for ionizing radiation detection.

Contribution

It introduces an improved HV-SOI-based MAPS design that mitigates radiation damage effects, enhancing radiation tolerance and charge collection speed compared to existing SOI-MAPS.

Findings

Successful fabrication of a prototype sensor using 180nm HV-SOI technology.

Demonstrated charge collection in neutron-irradiated samples.

Potential for highly radiation-tolerant, fast-charge collection MAPS.

Abstract

An improved SOI-MAPS (Silicon On Insulator Monolithic Active Pixel Sensor) for ionizing radiation based on thick-film High Voltage SOI technology (HV-SOI) has been developed. Similar to existing Fully Depleted SOI-based (FD-SOI) MAPS, a buried silicon oxide inter-dielectric (BOX) layer is used to separate the CMOS electronics from the handle wafer which is used as a depleted charge collection layer. FD-SOI MAPS suffer from radiation damage such as transistor threshold voltage shifts due to charge traps in the oxide layers and charge states created at the silicon oxide boundaries (back gate effect). The X-FAB 180-nm HV-SOI technology offers an additional isolation by deep non-depleted implant between the BOX layer and the active circuitry witch mitigates this problem. Therefore we see in this technology a high potential to implement radiation-tolerant MAPS with fast charge collection property. The design and measurement results from a first prototype are presented including charge collection in neutron irradiated samples.