Speaker
Description
Silicon carbide (SiC) devices have gained much attention owing to their superior characteristics that make them high-temperature, and radiation-hard applications. The advantage of SiC arises from its unique combination of electronic and physical properties such as wide band-gap, high breakdown electric field strength, high saturated electron velocity, and high thermal conductivity. The wide band-gap results in low intrinsic concentration and radiation hardness. The low intrinsic concentration determines low device leakages at high temperature. The high breakdown strength allows SiC devices to operate at much higher voltages.
Aim of this publication is to present current status of charged particle spectrometer based on SiC strip detector. The sensor is made of 4H–SiC (α-SiC) hexagonal crystalline structure material which manifests good spectroscopic characteristics for charged particle detection similar to standard silicon diode (20 keV FWHM with 5,4857 MeV 241Am alpha particle). To obtain sensors for charged particle detection out of SiC bulk material we created Schottky contacts on top and Ohmic contact on the bottom. Preparation of the contacts will be discussed alongside electric characterization of the sensor material. Moreover, results of charged particle detection, photon detection and detection of thermal neutron detection (after neutron converter deposition) and fast neutron detection will be presented. Particle detection capabilities were tested using standard NIM spectroscopic chain (sensors, preamp, spectroscopic amp and ADC). Moreover, the SiC sensor material was attached to VATA GP8 based 128 strip readout to form handheld spectrometer which will be demonstrated.
