arXiv subjects

G. D'Amen

Publications and source records attributed to G. D'Amen.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Mortality of ultra-thin LGADs and PiN diodes from high energy deposition

Low Gain Avalanche Diodes are prime candidates for high-resolution timing applications in High Energy Physics, Nuclear science, and several other fields. Operating these devices in high-radiation environments presents various hazards, including the risk of their permanent degradation or destruction caused by effects such as Single Event Burnout. Studies using minimum ionizing particles found a greatly reduced Single Event Burnout risk by operating below a bias voltage corresponding to an average electric field of 12 V/$μ$m - however, as high energy particle colliders produce a wide energy spectrum of radiation, it is crucial to understand this phenomenon and other possible damage mechanisms at energy deposition levels greater than those of minimum ionizing particles. This was achieved by pre-irradiating LGADs and PiN diodes with active thicknesses of 20, 30, and 50 $μ$m up to 1.5 $\times$ 10$^{15}$ $\mathrm{n_{eq}/cm^2}$, and exposing them to beams of protons and heavy ions (C, O, Fe, Au) at the BNL Tandem van de Graaff accelerator. Several mortality categories were observed, defined by different electrical and mechanical damage signatures. This furthers our understanding of permanent radiation damage of silicon devices, crucial towards mitigating Single Event Burnout and other damage mechanisms to safely operate future detectors.

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arXiv2025

First stave results towards mitigating sensor fracturing with interposers in the ATLAS ITk strips barrel

At the conclusion of Run 3 of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, the accelerator complex will be upgraded to the High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC), allowing it to increase the dataset sizes of LHC experiments by about a factor of 20. This significant increase in dataset size will improve the sensitivity and precision of all physics analyses from LHC experiments, but will come with a more challenging data-taking environment. In order to handle this, the ATLAS detector will undergo a substantial upgrade, including an upgrade of its inner tracker to an all-silicon tracker called the Inner Tracker (ITk), made of pixel and strip sub-detectors. During the pre-production phase of the ITk strips, it was discovered that thermally cycling modules loaded onto local support structures led to physical fractures in silicon sensors due to the induced thermal stress. This is understood to be the result of several factors, including the difference in coefficients of thermal expansion between the different module layers, and the close proximity of the module electrical components. Several mitigation strategies were tested to reduce the rate of module fracturing. This paper describes the assembly setup, testing setups, and electrical testing results of ITk strips barrel modules loaded onto local support structures. 69 of 70 modules with an in-built additional kapton layer were found to survive testing down to -70°C.

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arXiv2022

Solid State Detectors and Tracking for Snowmass

Tracking detectors are of vital importance for collider-based high energy physics (HEP) experiments. The primary purpose of tracking detectors is the precise reconstruction of charged particle trajectories and the reconstruction of secondary vertices. The performance requirements from the community posed by the future collider experiments require an evolution of tracking systems, necessitating the development of new techniques, materials and technologies in order to fully exploit their physics potential. In this article we summarize the discussions and conclusions of the 2022 Snowmass Instrumentation Frontier subgroup on Solid State and Tracking Detectors (Snowmass IF03).

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arXiv2022

Signal formation and sharing in AC-LGADs using the ALTIROC 0 front-end chip

The development of detectors that provide high resolution in four dimensions has attracted wide-spread interest in the scientific community for applications in high-energy physics, nuclear physics, medical imaging, mass spectroscopy as well as quantum information. However, finding a technology capable of fulfilling such aspiration proved to be an arduous task. Among other silicon-based candidates, the Low-Gain Avalanche Diode (LGAD) has already shown excellent timing performances but proved to be unsuitable for fine pixelization. Therefore, the AC-coupled LGAD (AC-LGAD) approach was introduced to provide high resolution in both time and space, making it a promising candidate for future 4D detectors. However, appropriate readout electronics must be developed to match the sensor's fast-time and fine-pitch capabilities. This is currently a major technological challenge. In this paper, we test AC-LGAD prototypes read out by the fast-time ASIC ALTIROC 0, originally developed for the readout of DC-coupled LGADs for the ATLAS experiment at the HL-LHC. Signal generated by either betas from a $^{90}$Sr source or a focused infra-red laser were analyzed. This paper details the first successful readout of an AC-LGAD sensor using a readout chip. This result will pave the way for the design and construction of a new generation of AC-LGAD-based 4D detectors.

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arXiv2020

Layout and Performance of HPK Prototype LGAD Sensors for the High-Granularity Timing Detector

The High-Granularity Timing Detector is a detector proposed for the ATLAS Phase II upgrade. The detector, based on the Low-Gain Avalanche Detector (LGAD) technology will cover the pseudo-rapidity region of $2.4<|η|<4.0$ with two end caps on each side and a total area of 6.4 $m^2$. The timing performance can be improved by implanting an internal gain layer that can produce signal with a fast rising edge, which improve significantly the signal-to-noise ratio. The required average timing resolution per track for a minimum-ionising particle is 30 ps at the start and 50 ps at the end of the HL-LHC operation. This is achieved with several layers of LGAD. The innermost region of the detector would accumulate a 1 MeV-neutron equivalent fluence up to $2.5 \times 10^{15} cm^{-2}$ before being replaced during the scheduled shutdowns. The addition of this new detector is expected to play an important role in the mitigation of high pile-up at the HL-LHC. The layout and performance of the various versions of LGAD prototypes produced by Hamamatsu (HPK) have been studied by the ATLAS Collaboration. The breakdown voltages, depletion voltages, inter-pad gaps, collected charge as well as the time resolution have been measured and the production yield of large size sensors has been evaluated.

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arXiv2018

Production and Integration of the ATLAS Insertable B-Layer

During the shutdown of the CERN Large Hadron Collider in 2013-2014, an additional pixel layer was installed between the existing Pixel detector of the ATLAS experiment and a new, smaller radius beam pipe. The motivation for this new pixel layer, the Insertable B-Layer (IBL), was to maintain or improve the robustness and performance of the ATLAS tracking system, given the higher instantaneous and integrated luminosities realised following the shutdown. Because of the extreme radiation and collision rate environment, several new radiation-tolerant sensor and electronic technologies were utilised for this layer. This paper reports on the IBL construction and integration prior to its operation in the ATLAS detector.

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