Calibrating p-i-n Diodes for Displacement Damage Monitoring in a Space Radiation Environment
D. J. Bennett, Vladimir A. Pan, James Vohradsky, Linh T. Tran, Dirk Wagenaar, Benedikt Bergmann, Hugo Cintas, P. Smolyankiy, R. Sykora, T. Slavíček, Z. Kohout, Joel Poder, A. Perevertaylo, Igor E. Anokhin, Anatoly B. Rosenfeld · IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science · 2025
This work investigates the response of specially developed silicon p-i-n diodes with a long base as sensors to measure displacement damage dose (DDD) in silicon. Measurements of DDD are based on the forward voltage shift ($\Delta V_{F}$) of irradiated p-i-n diodes. In this work, the p-i-n diodes were irradiated in the following radiation fields: 1) 20-MeV electrons from a medical linear accelerator (LINAC); 2) 200-, 150-, and 100-MeV protons at the Groningen proton therapy facility; and 3) 4.63- and 15.3-MeV quasi-monoenergetic neutrons at the Czech Technical University, Prague. It was demonstrated that the calibration factor ($\alpha $), which is the response of the p-i-n diode in terms of DDD obtained using 20-MeV electrons, can be used to predict the p-i-n diode response for protons and neutrons as mentioned above (within experimental error). However, the p-i-n diode response related to 100-MeV protons has a 70% higher response than predicted, which requires further investigation. Overall, the 20-MeV electrons from a medical LINAC were found to be suitable for p-i-n diodes calibration in terms of the non-ionizing energy losses (NIELs) and are widely available in contrast to 1-MeV electrons, fast neutrons, and protons.