Effect of Radiation Damage on the Response of Semiconductor Detectors to Fission Fragments

Abstract

Measurements have been made of the pulse‐height defect as a function of integrated fission‐fragment and alpha‐particle fluxes for a gold surface barrier and a p‐n junction detector. The measurements show that the pulse‐height defects increase as the detectors are damaged by radiation and that incident fission fragments are more effective in producing radiation damage than are alpha particles. It was found that, as the detectors were damaged, the pulse‐height defect increased more rapidly for the high energy fission‐fragment group from ²⁵²Cf than it did for the low energy group. It was also found that the rate of increase of the defect decreased as the electric field in the detector was increased.