Electron, Neutron, and Proton Irradiation Effects on SiC Radiation Detectors

The article introduces the changes of SiC under 24GeV/c proton irradiation, 2MeV electron irradiation, and neutron irradiation. With the increase of irradiation dose, the reverse leakage current of SiC decreases gradually, and the forward leakage current increases gradually. Meanwhile, the C-V curve shifts downward and becomes a horizontal line when the irradiation reaches a certain level(about 1e16). The effect of irradiation on leakage current may come from the formation of generation-recombination centers. In terms of the performance as detector, three alpha sources are used for testing. It can be seen that three peaks are visible at low irradiation(<5e14). After increasing the irradiation, although there is still a response to alpha particles, peaks cannot be distinguished. It is believed that high dose of irradiation(>1e15) can degrade SiC’s performance. On the other hand, with the increase of irradiation, some defects caused will reduce the charge collection rate, which will also degrade its performance. In conclusion, SiC can maintain good performance under low irradiation (around 1e14), but the performance will degrade obviously above 1e15 irradiation.

Further reading: J. M. Rafí et al., “Electron, Neutron, and Proton Irradiation Effects on SiC Radiation Detectors,” in IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, vol. 67, no. 12, pp. 2481-2489, Dec. 2020.