Recent results with radiation-tolerant TowerJazz 180 nm MALTA Sensors

TL;DR

This paper presents the development and testing of radiation-tolerant MALTA DMAPS sensors in 180 nm CMOS technology, demonstrating their suitability for future collider tracking detectors with high resolution and reduced material budget.

Contribution

It introduces the MALTA series of monolithic CMOS sensors with radiation hardness, high time resolution, and low material budget, advancing the design of cost-effective, radiation-tolerant detectors.

Findings

MALTA sensors exhibit high radiation tolerance.

Sensors achieve sub-2 ns time resolution.

Charge collection efficiency remains high after irradiation.

Abstract

To achieve the physics goals of future colliders, it is necessary to develop novel, radiation-hard silicon sensors for their tracking detectors. We target the replacement of hybrid pixel detectors with Depleted Monolithic Active Pixel Sensors (DMAPS) that are radiation-hard, monolithic CMOS sensors. We have designed, manufactured and tested the MALTA series of sensors, which are DMAPS in the 180 nm TowerJazz CMOS imaging technology. MALTA have a pixel pitch well below current hybrid pixel detectors, high time resolution (< 2 ns) and excellent charge collection efficiency across pixel geometries. These sensors have a total silicon thickness of between 50-300 $\mu$m, implying reduced material budgets and multiple scattering rates for future detectors which utilize such technology. Furthermore, their monolithic design bypasses the costly stage of bump-bonding in hybrid sensors and can substantially reduce detector costs. This contribution presents the latest results from characterization studies of the MALTA2 sensors, including results demonstrating the radiation tolerance of these sensors.