A novel diffusion-based silicon nuclear radiation detector

Wouters, S.E.; Otaredian, T.; Schooneveld, E.M.

doi:10.1016/0924-4247(91)87067-d

Cited by 7 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 1 publication

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…At the same time, the low wafer thickness and low background doping (8 x 10 14 cm -3 ) ensures that the generated electron-hole pairs can easily diffuse to the depletion layer and generate a current before recombining. 13 Hence, while the 50 µm thickness was initially chosen for its mechanical flexibility, it is also favorable for alpha-detector operation.We determined a pn-junction depth of ca. 2.5 µm via a thickness measurement of the phosphosilicate glass on the doped wafers.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Flexible silicon-based alpha-particle detector

Schuster

Smith²,

Sanderson³

et al. 2017

Applied Physics Letters

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The detection of alpha particles in the field can be challenging due to their short range in air of often only a few centimeters or less. This short range is a particular issue for measuring radiation inside contaminated pipework in the nuclear industry, for which there is currently no simple method available without cutting the pipes open. Here, we propose a novel approach based on a flexible 30 x 10 mm 2 sheet of 50 µm thin crystalline silicon. Following established fabrication steps of pn-junction diodes, we have successfully constructed a device with a signal-to-noise of >20 in response to 5.5 MeV alpha-particles using a bespoke amplifier circuit. As flexible detectors may readily conform to a curved surface and are able to adapt to the curvature of a given pipeline, our prototype device stands out as a viable solution for nuclear decommissioning and related applications. _____________________________ a) Electronic addresses: chriss@physics.org and david.jenkins@york.ac.uk. 2The decommissioning of nuclear sites requires reliable techniques for the detection, identification and quantification of radioactive substances. Discriminating between disposable and contaminated waste has a significant impact on the cost of decommissioning. The UK government has already forecast the enormous cost of at least £117 billion for decommissioning UK nuclear sites over the next century, 1 with other nuclear nations facing similar issues. New technologies and solutions therefore need to be explored in order to reduce the cost and to speed up the decommissioning progress.In particular, there is no simple, low-cost solution available for assessing the presence of radioactive sources that are essentially alpha-only emitters, such as plutonium 239 Pu, on the inner walls of pipework. The range of alpha-particles in media is intrinsically short and as such, alphaemitters are undetectable from the outside, as any radiation occurring on the inside of the pipe is absorbed by the wall. The emitting isotope may even be embedded in tiny cracks in the pipe wall meaning that alpha-particles may lose energy as they emerge. Consequently, alpha-particle detectors need to be positioned as closely as possible to the inner walls in order to achieve the greatest detection efficiency and be able to detect very low radiation doses.For the detection of alpha-particles, one can either collect the generated free charge carriers (formed directly by ionization of atoms or molecules) as an electrical pulse or convert the scintillation photons (due to recombination of free charge carrier pairs) into an electronic signal. 2One commercialized technique is the Ionsens® pipe monitor 3 which is based on the measurement of air-driving ions: if ambient air is struck by alpha-particles, the ionized air molecules can be driven to an ionization chamber via a fan. Collecting the ionized molecules and modelling the airspeed distribution inside the pipe allows one to determine the drifted distance from the source to the chamber, and so to locate the alpha-radiation....

show abstract

mentioning

confidence: 99%