Irradiation study of a fully monolithic HV-CMOS pixel sensor design in AMS 180 nm

TL;DR

This study evaluates the performance of a fully monolithic HV-CMOS pixel sensor, MuPix7, after high irradiation, demonstrating its suitability for high-radiation environments like HL-LHC with high efficiency and stable operation.

Contribution

First comprehensive irradiation testing of a fully monolithic HV-CMOS pixel sensor in AMS 180 nm process, showing robustness in high-radiation conditions for particle physics applications.

Findings

Efficiency above 90% after irradiation

Time resolution better than 22 ns at high fluences

Data transmission and on-chip PLL remain operational

Abstract

High-Voltage Monolithic Active Pixel Sensors (HV-MAPS) based on the 180 nm HV-CMOS process have been proposed to realize thin, fast and highly integrated pixel sensors. The MuPix7 prototype, fabricated in the commercial AMS H18 process, features a fully integrated on-chip readout, i.e. hit-digitization, zero suppression and data serialization. It is the first fully monolithic HV-CMOS pixel sensor that has been tested for the use in high irradiation environments like HL-LHC. We present results from laboratory and test beam measurements of MuPix7 prototypes irradiated with neutrons (up to $5.0\cdot10^{15}{\,\rm{n}_{\rm{eq}}/cm^2}$) and protons (up to $7.8\cdot 10^{15} \,\rm{protons}/cm^2$) and compare the performance with non-irradiated sensors. Efficiencies well above 90 % at noise rates below 200 Hz per pixel are measured. A time resolution better than 22 ns is measured for all tested settings and sensors, even at the highest irradiation fluences. The data transmission at 1.25 Gbit/s and the on-chip PLL remain fully functional.