Study of diamond membrane detector aiming at highly-efficient and position-sensitive particle detection for ion beam applications

(1) Japan Atomic Energy Agency
(2) Gunma University
(3) University of Oslo
(4) National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology
(5) CEA/LIST
(6) Ruđer Bošković Institute

Detection technology for high energy particles or ions is important not only in the field of high-energy physics or astrophysics but also for ion beam applications including micro-electronics, biology and also therapy. Highly precise beam control is crucial for such applications, because in interaction with material high energy heavy ions have a high linear energy transfer (LET). The irradiation effect by individual heavy ions with energy higher than MeV/u is investigated and utilized in biological applications or particle therapy. In these applications, it is also important to detect efficiently individual ions while irradiating sample in the atmosphere, with requirement to have high positional accuracy . To this demand, we proposed diamond membrane for a beam exit window as well as for a single ion detector, because of its excellent physical and electrical properties that were reached with improvement of its fabrication technology [1]. In this study, diamond membrane detectors were made to test the performance as particle detectors by measuring charge collection properties and the irradiation effect using various high energy ion beams. Microbeam systems at TIARA facility of Japan Atomic Energy Agency, Takasaki Japan and  the ion accelerator facility of Ruđer Bošković Institute, Zagreb Croatia, have been used.  In addition, alpha particle induced charge transient spectroscopy (APQTS) using alpha source and heavy ion induced charge transient spectroscopy (HIQTS) using the heavy ion microbeams were performed. These techniques were used to investigate the defect levels in diamond and to explore their influence to the performance of detection. This paper outlines the project which is being advanced in an international collaboration with Japanese and European scientists.  

This work was partly supported by Quantum Beam Technology Program of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), Japan, the project “Development of high-energy ion microbeam technology for novel applications of diamond” under the Strategic Japanese-Croatian Cooperative Program on Materials Science of the Japan Science and Technology Agency and the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports of the Republic of Croatia, and Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A), 26249149 MEXT.  

[1] V. Grilj, N. Skukan, M. Pomorski, W. Kada, N. Iwamoto, T. Kamiya T. Ohshima and M. Jakšić, Appl. Phys. Lett. 103 (2013) 243106-1-4.