The effects of radiation on gallium arsenide radiation detectors

Semi-insulating, undoped, Liquid Encapsulated Czochralski (SI-U LEC) GaAs detectors have been irradiated with 1 MeV neutrons, 24 GeV/c protons, and 300 MeV/c pions. The maximum fluences used were 6 × 1014, 3 × 1014, and 1.8 × 1014 particles/cm2, respectively. For all three types of irradiation, the charge collection efficiencies (cce) of the detector are reduced due to the reduction in the electron and hole mean free paths. Pion and proton irradiations produce a greater reduction in cce than neutron irradiation, with the pions having the greatest effect. The effect of annealing the detectors at room temperature, at 200°C and at 450°C with a flash lamp have been shown to reduce the leakage current and increase the cce of the irradiated detectors. The flash-lamp anneal produced the greatest increase in the cce from 26% to 70% by increasing the mean free path of the electrons. Two indium-doped samples were irradiated with 24 GeV/c protons and demonstrated no improvement over SI-U GaAs with respect to post-irradiation cce.