We have measured the radiation tolerance of poly-crystalline and single-crystalline diamonds grown by the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process by measuring the charge collected before and after irradiation in a 50 m pitch strip detector fabricated on each diamond sample. We irradiated one group of sensors with 800 MeV protons, and a second group of sensors with 24 GeV protons, in steps, to protons cm−2 and protons cm−2 respectively. We observe the sum of mean drift paths for electrons and holes for both poly-crystalline CVD diamond and single-crystalline CVD diamond decreases with irradiation fluence from its initial value according to a simple damage curve characterized by a damage constant for each irradiation energy and the irradiation fluence. We find for each irradiation energy the damage constant, for poly-crystalline CVD diamond to be the same within statistical errors as the damage constant for single-crystalline CVD diamond. We find the damage constant for diamond irradiated with 24 GeV protons to be and the damage constant for diamond irradiated with 800 MeV protons to be . Moreover, we observe the pulse height decreases with fluence for poly-crystalline CVD material and within statistical errors does not change with fluence for single-crystalline CVD material for both 24 GeV proton irradiation and 800 MeV proton irradiation. Finally, we have measured the uniformity of each sample as a function of fluence and observed that for poly-crystalline CVD diamond the samples become more uniform with fluence while for single-crystalline CVD diamond the uniformity does not change with fluence.

BackgroundIon Sensitive Field Effect Transistors (ISFETs) are one of the primitive structures for the fabrication of biosensors (BioFETs). Aiming at the optimization of the design and fabrication processes of BioFETs, the correlation between technological parameters and device electrical response can be obtained by means of an electrical device-level simulation. In this work we present a numerical simulation approach to the study of ISFET structures for bio-sensing devices (BioFET) using Synopsys Sentaurus Technology Computer-Aided Design (TCAD) tools.MethodsThe properties of a custom-defined material were modified in order to reproduce the electrolyte behavior. In particular, the parameters of an intrinsic semiconductor material have been set in order to reproduce an electrolyte solution.By replacing the electrolyte solution with an intrinsic semiconductor, the electrostatic solution of the electrolyte region can therefore be calculated by solving the semiconductor equation within this region.ResultsThe electrostatic behaviour (transfer characteristics) of a general BioFET structure has been simulated when the captured target number increases from 1 to 10. The ID current as a function of the VDS voltage for different positions of a single charged block and for different values of the reference electrode have been calculated.The electrical potential distribution along the electrolyte-insulator-semiconductor structure has been evaluated for different molar concentrations of the electrolyte solution.ConclusionsWe presented a numerical simulation approach to the study of Ion-Sensitive Field Effect Transistor (ISFET) structures for biosensing devices (BioFETs) using the Synopsys Sentaurus Technology Computer-Aided Design (TCAD) tools.A powerful framework for the design and optimization of biosensor has been devised, thus helping in reducing technology development time and cost. The main finding of the analysis of a general reference BioFET shows that there is no linear relationship between the number of charges and the current modulation. Actually, there is a strong position dependent effect: targets localized near the source region are most effective with respect to targets localized near the drain region. In general, even randomly distributed targets are more efficient with respect to locally grouped targets on the current modulation. Moreover, for the device at hand, a small positive biasing of the electrolyte solution, providing that the transistor goes on, will result in a greater enhancement of the current levels, still retaining a good sensitivity but greatly simplifying the operations of a real device.

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The three-dimensional concept in particle detection is based on the fabrication of columnar electrodes perpendicular to the surface of a solid state radiation sensor. It permits to improve the radiation resistance characteristics of a material by lowering the necessary bias voltage and shortening the charge carrier path inside the material. If applied to a long-recognized exceptionally radiation-hard material like diamond, this concept promises to pave the way to the realization of detectors of unprecedented performances. We fabricated conventional and three-dimensional polycrystalline diamond detectors, and tested them before and after neutron damage up to 1.2 ×1016 cm−2, 1 MeV-equivalent neutron fluence. We found that the signal collected by the three-dimensional detectors is up to three times higher than that of the conventional planar ones, at the highest neutron damage ever experimented.

Many new X-Ray treatment machines using small and/or non-standard radiation fields, e.g., Tomotherapy, Cyber-knife, and linear accelerators equipped with high-resolution multi-leaf collimators and on-board imaging system, have been introduced in the radiotherapy clinical routine within the last few years. The introduction of these new treatment modalities has led to the development of high conformal radiotherapy treatment techniques like Intensity Modulated photon Radiation Therapy, Volumetric Modulated Arc Therapy, and stereotactic radiotherapy. When using these treatment techniques, patients are exposed to non-uniform radiation fields, high dose gradients, time and space variation of dose rates, and beam energy spectrum. This makes reaching the required degree of accuracy in clinical dosimetry even more demanding. Continuing to use standard field procedures and detectors in fields smaller than 3 × 3 cm2, will generate a reduced accuracy of clinical dosimetry, running the risk to overshadowing the progress made so far in radiotherapy applications. These dosimetric issues represent a new challenge for medical physicists. To choose the most appropriate detector for small field dosimetry, different features must be considered. Short- and long-term stability, linear response to the absorbed dose and dose rate, no energy and angular dependence, are all needed but not sufficient. The two most sought-after attributes for small field dosimetry are water equivalence and small highly sensitive (high sensitivity) volumes. Both these requirements aim at minimizing perturbations of charged particle fluence approaching the Charged Particle Equilibrium condition as much as possible, while maintaining high spatial resolution by reducing the averaging effect for non-uniform radiation fields. A compromise between different features is necessary because no dosimeter currently fulfills all requirements, but diamond properties seem promising and could lead to a marked improvement. Diamonds have long been used as materials for dosimeters, but natural diamonds were only first used for medical applications in the 80 s. The availability of reproducible synthetic diamonds at a lower cost compared to natural ones made the diffusion of diamonds in dosimetry possible. This paper aims to review the use of synthetic poly and single-crystal diamond dosimeters in radiotherapy, focusing on their performance under MegaVoltage photon beams. Both commercial and prototype diamond dosimeters behaviour are described and analyzed. Moreover, this paper will report the main related results in literature, considering diamond development issues like growth modalities, electrical contacts, packaging, readout electronics, and how do they affect all the dosimetric parameters of interest such as signal linearity, energy dependence, dose-rate dependence, reproducibility, rise and decay times.

Detectors based on Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) diamond have been used extensively and successfully in beam conditions/beam loss monitors as the innermost detectors in the highest radiation areas of Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiments. The startup of the LHC in 2015 brought a new milestone where the first polycrystalline CVD (pCVD) diamond pixel modules were installed in an LHC experiment and successfully began operation. The RD42 collaboration at CERN is leading the effort to develop polycrystalline CVD diamond as a material for tracking detectors operating in extreme radiation environments. The status of the RD42 project with emphasis on recent beam test results is presented.

Hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) can be produced by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) of SiH4 (silane) mixed with hydrogen. The resulting material shows outstanding radiation hardness properties and can be deposited on a wide variety of substrates. Devices employing a-Si:H technologies have been used to detect many different kinds of radiation, namely, minimum ionizing particles (MIPs), X-rays, neutrons, and ions, as well as low-energy protons and alphas. However, the detection of MIPs using planar a-Si:H diodes has proven difficult due to their unsatisfactory S/N ratio arising from a combination of high leakage current, high capacitance, and limited charge collection efficiency (50% at best for a 30 µm planar diode). To overcome these limitations, the 3D-SiAm collaboration proposes employing a 3D detector geometry. The use of vertical electrodes allows for a small collection distance to be maintained while preserving a large detector thickness for charge generation. The depletion voltage in this configuration can be kept below 400 V with a consequent reduction in the leakage current. In this paper, following a detailed description of the fabrication process, the results of the tests performed on the planar p-i-n structures made with ion implantation of the dopants and with carrier selective contacts are illustrated.

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