Alumina and silicon oxide/nitride sidewall passivation for P- and N-type sensors

Silicon detectors normally have an inactive region along the perimeter of the sensor. In this paper we describe a “scribe, cleave, and passivate” (SCP) technique for the fabrication of slim edges in a post processing with finished detectors. The scribing was done by laser-scribing and etching. After scribing and cleaving steps, the sidewalls are passivated with a dielectric. We present results for n- and p-type sensors with different sidewall passivations. The leakage current depends strongly on the type of sidewall passivation. An alumina passivation leads to very low leakage currents for p-type sensors because of a negative interface charge. For n-type sensors, a hydrogenated silicon nitride shows the lowest leakage currents. Furthermore, we applied the technique to large area n-type single-sided strip detectors (cleaving length up to 3.5 cm).