Silicon carbide pin diodes as radiation detectors

We have tested the radiation detection performance of silicon carbide (SiC) pin diodes originally developed as high power diodes. These devices consist of 100 micron thick 4H-SiC grown epitaxially on SiC substrates. We measured the absolute charge generated by X-rays per keV in SiC by comparing the charge generation with similar silicon devices and determined the energy required per electron hole pair in SiC to be 7.6 eV. Small devices with a diameter of 1 mm were tested and produced spectra with a room temperature energy resolution of-550 eV at 60 keV, which is consistent with the electronics limit for the capacitance of the device. This allowed us to put an upper limit to the Fano factor of 0.04. We also performed radiation damage tests on these devices and found no significant loss in charge collection up to a photon dose of 100 MRad. Applications for these devices can be found in the fields of particle physics, nuclear physics, nuclear medicine, X-ray fluorescence, X-ray astronomy and X-ray navigation