Comparison of Silvaco and Synopsys TCAD Predictions Including the Perugia Radiation Damage Model in Silicon Pixel Detectors for the HL-LHC

TL;DR

This paper compares Silvaco and Synopsys TCAD simulation predictions for silicon pixel detectors under HL-LHC radiation conditions, focusing on the Perugia damage model's impact on device observables.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of two TCAD simulation tools incorporating the Perugia radiation damage model for predicting detector performance after irradiation.

Findings

Leakage current and depletion voltage predictions are consistent between tools.

Electric field and trap statistics show promising agreement.

Results are validated at different temperatures and fluences.

Abstract

At the High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC), silicon pixel detectors will be exposed to radiation fluences about 5 to 10 times larger than those experienced by the current innermost pixel layers up to today. Signal loss will be the main limitation to tracking and vertexing performance due to radiation damage in hybrid pixel detectors, with the increase in leakage current and depletion voltage posing severe constraints on operating conditions. It is important to have reliable predictions for all observables - such as charge collection performance, leakage current level and breakdown voltage - after irradiation, in order to estimate operational voltage values and to test the robustness of tracking algorithms. In this paper, the predictions of Silvaco and Synopsys TCAD device simulations are compared when the surface and bulk defects and traps of the ``Perugia radiation damage model'' are included. The results are quite promising regarding leakage current, depletion voltage, electric field and trap statistics, at two distinct reference temperatures and fluences.