Elsevier Science 1

Time dependence of the behaviour of silicon detectors in

intense radiation fields and the role of primary point defects 1
Sorina Lazanu,a* Ionel Lazanub
a
National Institute for Materials Physics, POBox MG-7, Bucharest-Magurele, Romania
b
University of Bucharest, Faculty of Physics, POBox MG-11, Bucharest-Magurele, Romania

Elsevier use only: Received date here; revised date here; accepted date here

Abstract

The bulk displacement damage in the detector, produces effects at the device level that limits the long time utilisation of
detectors as position sensitive devices and thus the lifetime of detector systems. So, the prediction of time behaviour of
detectors in hostile radiation environments represents a very useful tool. In this contribution we predict the time degradation
of silicon detectors in the radiation environments expected in the LHC machine upgrade in luminosity and energy as SLHC,
for detectors fabricated from silicon crystals obtained by different growth technologies, in the frame of the model developed
by the authors, and which takes into account the contribution of primary defects.

Keywords: silicon detectors; hadrons; leptons; radiation damage; primary defects; kinetics of defects.
PACS: 29.40.-n,61.82.Fk, 61.80.Az, 61.72.Cc

long history. A vast amount of data was collected

trying to understand the principal mechanisms by
1. Overview of the changes induced by irradiation which the detector performances change during
in the operational silicon detector parameters irradiation and deteriorate the optimised device
parameters. The main operational parameters that
The studies related to irradiation effects in degrade detection characteristics of the device are:
semiconductors, and in particular in silicon, have a the full depletion voltage Vdep, the leakage current

———
1
Work in the frame of CERN RD50 collaboration
*
Corresponding author. fax: +40-1-4930267; e-mail: [email protected] .
2 Elsevier Science

and the charge collection efficiency (CCE). These of the concentration of primary defects on unit
changes are due to bulk displacement damage in the particle fluence (CPD) is calculated for each incident
lattice, which produces primary point defects, which, particle and energy, and it is used in the evaluation of
during annealing processes, interact between them or the generation rate of defects during irradiation in
with impurities and produce new defects. accord with Lindhard theory. In the next step is
Consequently, an increase of the leakage current in modelled the formation and time evolution of
the detector is produced, a decrease of the initially complex defects, associations of primary defects or of
satisfactory Signal/Noise ratio, and an increase of the primary defects and impurities. The primary point
effective carrier concentration (and thus of the defects considered here are vacancies (as “classic”
depletion voltage), which ultimately increases the vacancies and fourfold coordinated vacancy defects:
operational voltage of the device beyond the SiFFCD) and silicon self interstitials. In what regards
breakdown voltage. the SiFFCD defect, its existence was predicted by
In silicon detectors, the increase of the leakage Goedecker and co-workers [2] and its characteristics
current during and after irradiation is due to the were indirectly established by Lazanu and Lazanu
generation of electron-hole pairs on the energy levels [3]. We established that this defect is produced
of the produced defects, an important contribution to simultaneously with the “classic” vacancy, with a
the leakage current having those with energy levels in concentration of about 10% from all vacancies per act
the vicinity of the mid-gap, and with high cross of interaction, is stable in time, it is uniformly
sections for carrier capture. It has been calculated in introduced in the bulk during irradiation and has deep
agreement with the Shockley – Read - Hall model. In energy level(s) in the gap, at least one energy level
the field region, the occupancy of the energy levels is between Ec – (0.46 ÷ 0.48) eV. The primary defects
determined by the balance of trapping and emission are introduced with a rate that is sum of contributions
of charge carriers. The effective carrier concentration, from thermal generation and generation by
Neff represents the absolute value of the difference irradiation.
between ionised donors and acceptors. In the forthcoming analysis, only phosphorus,
carbon and oxygen impurities are considered as pre-
existent in silicon. The kinetics of defects was
2. The model for silicon degradation modelled applying the theory of diffusion-limited
reactions. The complete reaction scheme for the
The model of kinetics of defects used in the formation and evolution of defects could be found in
present work has been developed previous by the reference [1]. The time evolution of defect
authors, see for example [1] and references cited concentrations for primary and complex defects
therein. It describes, at the microscopic level, the produced in silicon is the solution of the associated
formation and evolution of defects in silicon during system of simultaneous differential equations, which
and after irradiation and correlates these effects with do not have an analytic solution. The model is able to
the macroscopic parameters of the device. calculate, without free parameters, absolute values of
The incident particle interacts with the microscopic and macroscopic quantities.
semiconductor material. The peculiarities of the
interaction mechanisms are explicitly considered for
each type of particle and kinetic energy. When an 3. Predictions of the behaviour of detectors in
incident particle is slowed down in silicon, it radiation fields
produces different types of damage. While ionisation
is the basis of particle detection and is reversible, The comparison of model calculation with
displacement effects produce defects in the lattice – experimental data at the macroscopic level has been
which are of interest for this analysis. The processes performed. In this respect, three classes of results will
by which the recoil nuclei resulting from these be discussed here: a) related to the time evolution of
interactions lose their energy in the semiconductor macroscopic characteristics of detectors after
lattice are modelled. The kinetic energy dependence irradiation, b) the fluence dependence of these
 Elsevier Science 3

characteristics for different technologies used, and c) obtained; in the case of Cz silicon, this agreement is
predictions of detector behaviour in continuous restricted only to the beginning of irradiation, i.e. to
irradiations regime as expected to SLHC for FZ and low fluences. In our opinion, this fact could be
DOFZ technologies for silicon detectors. attributed the presence of defects associated with
a) The modifications induced by irradiation in the oxygen in the material, and consequently
leakage current and effective carrier concentration of supplementary processes they are taking part in
silicon detectors have been previously calculated and during and after irradiation must be added to the
compared with available experimental data on reaction scheme.
detector characteristics after irradiation with For high resistivity silicon (2 kWcm and 15 kWcm
electrons, protons, positive and negative pions, and respectively) irradiated with 24 GeV/c protons, a
neutrons (see Ref. [3]). A good agreement between good agreement between model calculations and
model calculations and experimental data has been experimental data from Ref. [4] is obtained both for
obtained. FZ and DOFZ material, as could be seen in Figure 2.
b) The standard growth techniques of the silicon These results show that the degradation at the highest
crystal utilised for detectors fabrication are fluences studied here is not clearly correlated with
Czochralski (Cz) and Float Zone (FZ). They differ oxygen concentration in silicon or with the resistivity
mainly by the oxygen concentration and by the of the starting material. Consequently, for high
resistivity. Due to the believed positive role of fluences, it is not possible to make a choice between
oxygen, a technique for its incorporation into FZ FZ and DOFZ materials.
silicon has been developed and DOFZ has been
obtained.
FZ 2KΩcm DOFZ 2 kΩcm
Model calculations have been compared with 1x10
13
10
13

experimental data for fluence dependence of Neff after

Neff [cm ]
-3

pion and proton irradiation. In Figure 1, this 10

12

comparison is presented for silicon irradiated with 1x10

12

calculated exp Si <100>

exp. Si <111>
190 MeV/c pions, where the silicon wafer was exp. Si <100>
exp Si <111>
calculated
11

obtained using FZ, DOFZ, and Cz techniques 0 2x10

14
4x10
14
6x10
14
8x10
14
1x10
15 10
0 2x10
14
4x10
14
6x10
14
8x10
14 15
1x10

respectively. FZ 15 KΩcm DOFZ 15 kΩcm

13
1x10
13 1x10
FZ DOFZ
Neff [cm ]
-3

13
1x10
13
1x10
Neff [cm ]
-3

12 12
1x10 1x10
12
1x10 calculated calculated
experimental experimental
12
1x10
14 14 14 14 15
0 2x10 4x10 6x10 8x10 1x10 14 14 14 14 15
calculated calculated 0 2x10 4x10 6x10 8x10 1x10
2
11 experimental Φ [p/cm ] 2
experimental 1x10 Φ [p/cm ]

Cz
Figure 2 Fluence dependence of the effective carrier concentration
12
8x10
of FZ and DOFZ silicon detectors irradiated with protons
Neff [cm ]
-3

12
6x10

12
4x10

2x10
12
calc, TD generated
calc, TD killed
c) In the environments considered in the present
exp, TD generated
exp, TD killed study, the detector systems will work usually
0
0 2x10
14
4x10
14

Φ [π/cm2]
6x10
14 14
8x10 1x10
15
between 5 to 10 years, in a continuous irradiation
Fig 1 Fluence dependence of Neff for DOFZ, FZ and Cz silicon field. At the present time the radiation fields in
detectors irradiated with pions approximate experimental configurations are
estimated only for LHC.
For LHC upgrades, in the absence of detailed
It could be seen that, while for FZ and DOFZ studies, only suppositions are possible. In this
growth methods a reasonable agreement has been contribution, only the SLHC option will be discussed.
4 Elsevier Science

Following the idea exposed by F. Gianotti in Ref. [5], effects being correlated with the luminosity and not
we supposed the following conditions for the collider with the characteristics of particle spectra.
upgrade: the luminosity is increased with an factor of
ten in report with LHC, the beam energy is increased
with a factor of two, and the energetic distributions of 4. Summary
pions and protons are the same as for LHC
conditions, but with the average energy of the spectra The model is able to reproduce the main
shifted to higher energy with 50 MeV. In the LHC characteristics of the available experimental data on
conditions (considering for the concrete discussions time and fluence dependence of leakage current and
the particular case of the CMS experiment), after the effective carrier concentration for FZ and DOFZ
primary interaction, hadrons are the predominant silicon. It is able to predict the behaviour of Si
particles in the tracker, especially low energy charged detectors obtained from crystals grown by these
pions and protons. The maximum in the rates of techniques in different radiation fields.
primary defects generated by pions comes from the In the scenarios for radiation environments at
region around 200 MeV while for protons the major SLHC, the produced degradation of silicon detectors
contribution comes from the lowest energy region. scales with luminosity, and is roughly independent on
The rates of generation of defects (induced by pions particle spectra. In these conditions, there are no
and protons) are: 6.8 x 108 VI/cm3/s in the LHC significant differences between FZ and DOFZ
conditions and 7.2 x 109 VI/cm3/s for SLHC silicon. In conditions of continuous long time
hypothesis. The contributions coming from proton irradiation at high rates of generation of defects, the
spectra represent about 8 % from all primary defects. contribution of primary defects is important and must
The behaviour of FZ and DOFZ silicon detectors be considered, but these predictions need
in the fields estimated for LHC and SLHC is experimental confirmation. Because the processes
presented as time dependence of the density of have temperature dependence, the decrease of the
leakage current and as effective carrier concentration, temperature is strongly required, in order to diminish
in conditions of continuous irradiation – see Figure 3. these macroscopic effects.
For leakage currents, the differences between DOFZ
and FZ silicon are very small and could be observed
especially for LHC rates in the first months of Acknowledgments
operation, where DOFZ silicon seems radiation
harder. This work has partially been supported by the
Romanian Scientific National Programmes CERES
10
-1
10
14
and MATNANTECH under contracts C4-69/2004
and 219 (404) /2004 respectively..
Neff [cm ]
j [A/cm ]

-3
3

-2 13
10 10

-3 12
10 10
DOFZ; LHC DOFZ; LHC
DOFZ; SLHC DOFZ; SLHC

10
-4
FZ; LHC
FZ; SLHC 10
11 FZ; LHC
FZ; SLHC
References
0.01 0.1 1 10 0.1 1 10
Time [years] Time [years]
[1] I. Lazanu, S. Lazanu, Phys. Scripta 71 (2005) 31.
Figure 3 Time dependence of the volume density of the leakage [2] S. Goedecker, Th. Deutsch, L. Billard, Phys. Rev. Lett. 88
current and effective carrier concentration for FZ and DOFZ (2002) 235501.
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degradation of silicon detectors due to hadron and lepton
irradiation”, http://xxx.lanl.gov, arXiv physics 0507058.
[4] M. Moll, Nucl. Instr. Meth. Phys. Res. A 511 (2003) 97.
As in the previous case, one could see that the [5] F. Gianotti, ICFA, 9/10/2002.
benefits of oxygenation are lost, and roughly the
same results are estimated for both materials, the