Development of thin hydrogenated amorphous silicon detectors on a flexible substrate

TL;DR

This paper discusses the development of thin, flexible hydrogenated amorphous silicon detectors for radiation monitoring in harsh environments, highlighting their potential in medical, space, and beam applications.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to fabricating radiation-hard, flexible a-Si:H detectors on various substrates, including preliminary results demonstrating feasibility.

Findings

Successful deposition of a-Si:H on flexible substrates

Preliminary detector performance data on PI and glass

Potential applications in space and medical fields

Abstract

The HASPIDE (Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon PIxels DEtectors) project aims at the development of thin hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) detectors on flexible substrates (mostly Polyimide) for beam monitoring, neutron detection and space applications. Since a-Si:H is a material with superior radiation hardness, the benefit for the above-mentioned applications can be appreciated mostly in radiation harsh environments. Furthermore, the possibility to deposit this material on flexible substrates like Polyimide (PI), polyethylene naphthalate (PEN) or polyethylene terephthalate (PET) facilitates the usage of these detectors in medical dosimetry, beam flux and beam profile measurements. Particularly interesting is its use when positioned directly on the flange of the vacuum-to-air separation interface in a beam line, as well as other applications where a thin self-standing radiation flux detector is envisaged. In this paper, the HASPIDE project will be described and some preliminary results on PI and glass substrates will be reported.