Online radiation dose measurement system for ATLAS experiment

In experiments at Large Hadron Collider detectors and electronics will be exposed to high fluxes of photons, charged particles and neutrons. Damage caused by the radiation will influence performance of detectors. It will therefore be important to continuously monitor the radiation dose in order to follow the level of degradation of detectors and electronics and to correctly predict future radiation damage. A system for online radiation monitoring using semiconductor radiation sensors at large number of locations has been installed in the ATLAS experiment. Ionizing dose in SiO2 will be measured with RadFETs, displacement damage in silicon in units of 1-MeV(Si) equivalent neutron fluence with p-i-n diodes. At 14 monitoring locations where highest radiation levels are expected the fluence of thermal neutrons will be measured from current gain degradation in dedicated bipolar transistors. The design of the system and tests of its performance in mixed radiation field is described in this paper.