Self-driven beta-radiation detection through a graphene/water/silicon heterostructure

Tengfei Wu; Kangchen Xiong; Minhui Yang; Xin Chen; Shisheng Lin

Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · 2611.01681

Self-driven beta-radiation detection through a graphene/water/silicon heterostructure

Tengfei Wu·Kangchen Xiong·Minhui Yang·Xin Chen·Shisheng Lin

View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

Large-volume neutrino observatories, exemplified by IceCube, exploit Cherenkov light generated by neutrino-induced charged particles in Antarctic ice, highlighting the potential of water-based media for high-energy particle detection. In $β$-decay, a neutron converts into a proton via the weak interaction, emitting an electron and an electron antineutrino. The electron constitutes the beta radiation detected in this work, while the accompanying antineutrino motivates future extensions toward neutrino detection. Here we demonstrate a complementary electrical transduction strategy using a graphene/water/silicon heterostructure that generates reversible current transients under beta irradiation at zero applied bias. Energetic electrons deposit energy in silicon, producing nonequilibrium carriers that perturb the semiconductor surface potential and electric displacement across the adjacent aqueous interface. The resulting redistribution of interfacial water polarization drives a transient compensation current, whereas carrier relaxation restores the initial polarization state and generates an opposite-polarity recovery signal. The complete irradiation-detector-electrometer system exhibits exponential rise and recovery time constants of approximately 1.0 and 3.6 ms, respectively. The response is strongly regulated by water-layer thickness and ionic composition, and the 17 beam pulses of a programmed 1 s sequence at 17 Hz are resolved individually. Integration with Ce:YAG further introduces a scintillation-mediated excitation pathway. These findings establish interfacial water polarization as a tunable, zero-bias electrical transduction mechanism for time-resolved beta-radiation monitoring and motivate future investigations of higher-energy charged particles and secondary particles relevant to neutrino detection.

Explore related subjects

physics.ins-det physics.optics

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeX RIS

Tengfei Wu, Kangchen Xiong, Minhui Yang, Xin Chen, Shisheng Lin. 2026-11-01. Self-driven beta-radiation detection through a graphene/water/silicon heterostructure. https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.01681

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2026

Positron Emission Tomography with quantum-entangled Compton events: first imaging results at clinically relevant activities

In Positron Emission Tomography, a potential, yet unutilized enhancement, may come from exploiting the quantum entanglement of the annihilation quanta, inscribed in the correlation of their polarizations. To investigate this, we built a PET demonstrator capable of measuring polarization correlations of annihilation quanta by their Compton scattering, based on single-layer scintillator polarimeters. We present a detailed study of the imaging of two $^{68}$Ge line sources, 45 MBq each, to extract the spatial resolution and assess image quality. The results show that a spatial resolution of 2.5$\pm$0.1 mm is obtained using single-pixel events, while resolutions obtained with polarization-correlated Compton events range from 3.6$\pm$0.3 mm to 4.9$\pm$0.3 mm, depending on data selection criteria. We also found that the polarization-correlated Compton events exhibit up to 20% higher average signal to random background ratio compared to the single-pixel events. We also present the first imaging of the NEMA NU-4 phantom filled with a $^{68}$Ga solution of 378 MBq initial activity, successfully combining polarization-correlated events with conventional single-pixel event selection. Based on the extracted spatial resolution, signal-to-background, signal-to-noise, contrast, and contrast-to-noise ratio, we estimate that up to 10% sensitivity increase may be attained by exploiting the polarization-correlated events, while preserving a high image quality.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2026

Characterization of immersed SiPM arrays in liquid scintillator between room temperature and $-30\,^{\circ}\mathrm{C}$

Liquid scintillator detectors instrumented with distributed silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) arrays can be used in compact, topology-sensitive, and low-background experiments, but the temperature dependence of SiPMs immersed directly in the scintillation medium has not been widely characterized. We report the operation of a 125-liter linear-alkylbenzene-based liquid scintillator detector read out by 125 SiPM channels immersed in the active volume, over the range from room temperature to $-30\,^{\circ}\mathrm{C}$. The detector response was measured with cosmic-ray muons, including stopping muons followed by their Michel-electron decay. Cooling from $+15\,^{\circ}\mathrm{C}$ to $-30\,^{\circ}\mathrm{C}$ reduced the SiPM dark-count rate by a factor of 13.5, increased the single-photoelectron response by 49.1%, and increased the cosmic-ray muon light yield by 16.7%. The improved photoelectron separation and baseline stability at low temperature enabled a selection of stopping-muon events, from which the effective muon lifetime was measured to be $1959\pm132\,\mathrm{ns}$, consistent with the value expected for a hydrocarbon scintillator once $μ^{-}$ capture on carbon is taken into account.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2026

Residual AM and PM Noise of Selected X-Band Amplifiers

In microwave systems design, amplitude modulation (AM) noise is often ignored relative to phase modulation (PM) noise. However, in high-performance applications requiring ultra-low PM noise, AM noise becomes a critical limiting factor due to AM-to-PM conversion mechanisms. Because AM noise specifications are rarely, if ever, provided for commercial microwave components, this study characterizes the residual AM and PM noise of several 10 GHz amplifiers. We present performance data for various Heterojunction Bipolar Transistor (HBT) amplifier designs and demonstrate the noise reduction achieved through power-summed configurations. For example, a discrete-die GaAs HBT amplifier achieves residual PM noise below $-160$ dBrad$^2$/Hz and AM noise of approximately $-155$ dB/Hz at a 1 kHz offset in a quad power-summed configuration. A notable finding is that the majority of amplifier designs surveyed in this study exhibit higher AM noise relative to their PM noise, with only a few exceptions. The impact of bias supply quality on residual noise is also quantified, demonstrating that the choice of voltage regulator is a first-order design parameter below 1 kHz offset.

physics.ins-det↗