Modeling of Radiation Damage Effects in Silicon Detectors at High Fluences HL-LHC with Sentaurus TCAD

TL;DR

This paper introduces an advanced radiation damage model for silicon detectors, enabling accurate device-level simulations at extremely high neutron fluences relevant to HL-LHC, validated by experimental data.

Contribution

The work develops a novel deep level trap-based damage model for TCAD simulations, improving prediction accuracy for high-fluence silicon detector behavior.

Findings

Simulation results closely match experimental data.

Model effectively predicts detector performance at high fluences.

Supports optimization of future HL-LHC silicon detectors.

Abstract

In this work we propose the application of an enhanced radiation damage model based on the introduction of deep level traps / recombination centers suitable for device level numerical simulation of silicon detectors at very high fluences (e.g. 2.0x10E16 1 MeV equivalent neutrons/cm2). We present the comparison between simulation results and experimental data for p-type substrate structures in different operating conditions (temperature and biasing voltages) for fluences up to 2.2x10E16 neutrons/cm2. The good agreement between simulation findings and experimental measurements fosters the application of this modeling scheme to the optimization of the next silicon detectors to be used at HL-LHC.