Silicon detectors for the next generation of high energy physics experiments: expected degradation

Abstract

There exists an enormous interest for the study of very high energy domain in particle physics, both theoretically and experimentally, in the aim to construct a general theory of the fundamental constituents of matter and of their interactions. Until now, semiconductor detectors have widely been used in modern high energy physics experiments. They are elements of the high resolution vertex and tracking system, as well as of calorimeters. The main motivation of this work is to discuss how to prepare some possible detectors - only silicon option being considered, for the new era of HEP challenges because the bulk displacement damage in the detector, consequence of irradiation, produces effects at the device level that limit their long time utilisation, increasing the leakage current and the depletion voltage, eventually up to breakdown, and thus affecting the lifetime of detector systems. In this paper, physical phenomena that conduce to the degradation of the detector are discussed and effects are analysed at the device level (leakage current and effective carrier concentration) in the radiation environments expected in the next generation of hadron colliders after LHC, at the next lepton and gamma-gamma colliders, as well as in astroparticle experiments, in conditions of long time continuum irradiations, for different technological options. The predicted results permit a better decision to obtain devices with harder parameters to radiation.