No Arabic abstract
A new model for the thermal spike produced by the nuclear energy loss, as source of transient processes, is derived analytically, for power law dependences of the diffusivity on temperature, as solution of the heat equation. The contribution of the ionizing energy loss to the spike is not included. The range of validity of the model is analysed, and the results are compared with numerical solutions obtained in the frame of the previous model of the authors, which takes into account both nuclear and ionization energy losses, as well as the coupling between the two subsystems in crystalline semiconductors. Particular solutions are discussed and the errors induced by these approximations are analysed.
Studies of the radiation hardness of lead tungstate crystals produced by the Bogoroditsk Techno-Chemical Plant in Russia and the Shanghai Institute of Ceramics in China have been carried out at IHEP, Protvino. The crystals were irradiated by a 40-GeV pion beam. After full recovery, the same crystals were irradiated using a $^{137}Cs$ $gamma$-ray source. The dose rate profiles along the crystal length were observed to be quite similar. We compare the effects of the two types of radiation on the crystals light output.
This paper reports on the characterisation with Transient Current Technique measurements of the charge collection and depletion depth of a radiation-hard high-voltage CMOS pixel sensor produced at ams AG. Several substrate resistivities were tested before and after proton irradiation with two different sources: the 24 GeV Proton Synchrotron at CERN and the 16.7 MeV Cyclotron at Bern Inselspital.
Radiation damage in lead tungstate crystals reduces their transparency. The calibration that relates the amount of light detected in such crystals to incident energy of photons or electrons is of paramount importance to maintaining the energy resolution the detection system. We report on tests of lead tungstate crystals, read out by photomultiplier tubes, exposed to irradiation by monoenergetic electron or pion beams. The beam electrons themselves were used to measure the scintillation light output, and a blue light emitting diode (LED) was used to track variations of crystals transparency. We report on the correlation of the LED measurement with radiation damage by the beams and also show that it can accurately monitor the crystals recovery from such damage.
The apparatus of the ALICE experiment at CERN will be upgraded in 2017/18 during the second long shutdown of the LHC (LS2). A major motivation for this upgrade is to extend the physics reach for charmed and beauty particles down to low transverse momenta. This requires a substantial improvement of the spatial resolution and the data rate capability of the ALICE Inner Tracking System (ITS). To achieve this goal, the new ITS will be equipped with 50 um thin CMOS Pixel Sensors (CPS) covering either the 3 innermost layers or all the 7 layers of the detector. The CPS being developed for the ITS upgrade at IPHC (Strasbourg) is derived from the MIMOSA 28 sensor realised for the STAR-PXL at RHIC in a 0.35 um CMOS process. In order to satisfy the ITS upgrade requirements in terms of readout speed and radiation tolerance, a CMOS process with a reduced feature size and a high resistivity epitaxial layer should be exploited. In this respect, the charged particle detection performance and radiation hardness of the TowerJazz 0.18 um CMOS process were studied with the help of the first prototype chip MIMOSA 32. The beam tests performed with negative pions of 120 GeV/c at the CERN-SPS allowed to measure a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for the non-irradiated chip in the range between 22 and 32 depending on the pixel design. The chip irradiated with the combined dose of 1 MRad and 10^13 n_eq/cm^2 was observed to yield a SNR ranging between 11 and 23 for coolant temperatures varying from 15 C to 30 C. These SNR values were measured to result in particle detection efficiencies above 99.5% and 98% before and after irradiation respectively. These satisfactory results allow to validate the TowerJazz 0.18 um CMOS process for the ALICE ITS upgrade.
The high-luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) upgrade is setting now a new challenge for particle detector technologies. The increase in luminosity will produce a particle background in the gas-based muon detectors that is ten times higher than under conditions at the LHC. The detailed knowledge of the detector performance in the presence of such a high background is crucial for an optimized design and efficient operation after the HL-LHC upgrade. A precise understanding of possible aging effects of detector materials and gases is of extreme importance. To cope with these challenging requirements, a new Gamma Irradiation Facility (GIF++) was designed and built at the CERN SPS North Area as successor of the Gamma Irradiation Facility (GIF) during the Long Shutdown 1 (LS1) period. It features an intense source of 662 keV photons with adjustable intensity, to simulate continuous background over large areas, and, combined with a high energy muon beam, to measure detector performance in the presence of the background. The new GIF++ facility has been operational since spring 2015. In addition to describing the facility and its infrastructure, the goal of this work is to provide an extensive characterization of the GIF++ photon field with different configurations of the absorption filters in both the upstream and downstream irradiation areas. Moreover, the measured results are benchmarked with Geant4 simulations to enhance the knowledge of the radiation field. The absorbed dose in air in the facility may reach up to 2.2 Gy/h directly in front of the irradiator. Of special interest is the low-energy photon component that develops due to the multiple scattering of photons within the irradiator and from the concrete walls of the bunker.