Can the electric field in radiation-damaged silicon pad diodes be determined by admittance and current measurements?

TL;DR

This paper introduces a method to determine the electric field distribution in highly-irradiated silicon pad diodes using admittance-frequency and current measurements, validated across various irradiation levels, voltages, and temperatures.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel approach to extract electric field profiles in irradiated silicon diodes from admittance and current data, addressing a key challenge in radiation damage characterization.

Findings

The method accurately describes the electric field distribution below 300V.

Depleted high-field regions are observed near diode faces, with a low-field center.

The method fails when the diode becomes fully depleted at higher voltages.

Abstract

A method is proposed for determining the electric field in highly-irradiated silicon pad diodes using admittance-frequency (Y-f ), and current measurements (I). The method is applied to Y-f and I data from square n+p diodes of 25mm2 area irradiated by 24 GeV/c protons to four 1MeV neutron equivalent fluences between 3E15 cm^2 and 13E15 cm^2. The measurement conditions were: Reverse voltages between 1V and 1000V, frequencies between 100Hz and 2MHz and temperatures of -20{\deg}C and -30{\deg}C. The position dependence of the electric field is parameterised by a linear dependence at the two sides of the diode, and a constant in the centre. The parameters as a function of voltage, temperature and irradiation fluence are determined by fits of the model to the data. For voltages below about 300V all data are well described by the model, and the results for the electric field agrees with expectations: Depleted high-field regions towards the two faces and a constant low electric field in the centre, with values which agrees with the field in an ohmic resistor with approximately the intrinsic resistivity of silicon. For conditions at which the low field region disappears and the diode is fully depleted, the method fails. This happens around 300V for the lowest irradiation fluence at -30{\deg}C, and at higher voltages for higher fluences and lower temperatures. In the conclusions the successes and problems of the method are discussed.