Speaker
Piergiulio Lenzi
(Universita e INFN, Firenze (IT))
Description
We present the CLASSIC R&D for the development of a Silicon Carbide (SiC) based
avalanche photodiode for the detection of Cherenkov light.
SiC is a wide-bandgap semiconductor material, which, thanks to the 3.3 eV
bandgap, is insensitive to visible light. A SiC based light detection device
has a peak sensitivity in the deep UV, around 280 nm, making it ideal for Cherenkov
light. Moreover, the visible blindness allows the use of such a device for the
disentanglement of Cherenkov and scintillation light in all those materials
that scintillate above 400 nm.
Within CLASSIC, we aim at developing a device with single photon sensitivity, having
in mind two main applications. One is the use of the SiC APD in a new
generation ToF PET scanners concept, using the Cherenov light emitted by the
electrons following 511 keV gamma ray absorption as a timestamp. Cherenkov is
intrinsically faster than scintillation and could provide an unprecedentedly
precise timestamp. The second application concerns the use of SiC APD in dual
readour crystal based hadronic calorimeter, where the Cherenkov component is
used to measure the electromagnetic fraction on an event by event basis.
We will report on our progress towards the realization of the SiC APD devices,
the strategies that are being pursued toward the realization of these devices
and the preliminary results on prototypes in terms of spectral response, quantum
efficiency, noise figures and multiplication.
Primary author
Piergiulio Lenzi
(Universita e INFN, Firenze (IT))
Co-author
Dr
Antonella Sciuto
(CNR-IMM)
