Electron Radiation Damage Effects in Silicon Surface-Barrier Detectors

Silicon surface-barrier detectors have been irradiated at room temperature with monoenergetic electrons in the energy range of 200 keV to 1 MeV. The changes of detector reverse leakage current, noise, capacitance and alpha-particle counting response were determined. In general, detector current and noise increased with electron fluence and energy for electron energies of 400 keV and above. Detector capacitances tended to decrease slightly for electron fluences up to 1013 cm-2 and increase at higher fluences. No significant degradation of detector performance was observed as a result of irradiation with 200-keV electrons for fluences up to 1016 cm-2. The effects of damage on detector performance were reduced when the rear, aluminum contact was irradiated rather than the front, gold contact.