Development of radiation hard silicon detectors: the SMART project

The research actitvity of the SMART project, a collaboration of Italian research institutes funded by the I.N.F.N., has been focused on the development of radiation hard silicon position sensitive detectors for the CERN Large Hadron Collider luminosity upgrade. Electrical characterization of pad and micro-strip devices as well as study of microscopic defects on the bulk material have been carried out on silicon 4” wafers of n- and p-type, grown with Standard Float Zone (SFz), high resistivity Magnetic Czochralski (MCz) and epitaxial (EPI) techniques. Manufactured devices have been irradiated with 24 GeV/c and26 MeV protons up to ~ 3x1015 cm-2 1 MeV neutrons eq. (neq/cm2) and with reactor neutrons up to ~8x1015 neq/cm2. Preliminary results of measurements before and after irradiations as well as material radiation hardness are shown and discussed