Particle detection with CVD diamond

In this study synthetic diamonds are investigated with respect to the applicability as a material for future particle detection systems. Different methods to characterise electrical and structural properties are employed and further developed to gain a deeper understanding of the charge collection process in the material. The investigations with spatially resolving and non-resolving methods show that the charge collection properties are non-uniformly distributed in the polycrystalline material, and depend on the stopping range of the ionising particle. Different methods measure a consistent degree of non-uniformity. The spread of the charge collection efficiency is typically of the order of 20% rms to the mean. Results obtained with a computer simulation, Which incorporates the crystallite structure and describes the charge collection in terms of microscopic quantities, is in good agreement with the experimental findings. To improve the detection properties a systematic study of the growth parameters of a chemical vapour deposition process (CVD) to produce diamond is performed. Correlations of growth conditions and detection properties are established. Material with a collection efficiency of as much as 38% is obtained. The sensibility of diamond to irradiation with neutrons is tested up to a fluence of 6.5.10"1"5 n cm"-"2. It is found that the charge collection efficiency of diamond deteriorates with increasing neutron fluence, varying in decrease for different samples. The experimental observations are explained by a damage model, which is used to predict the damage behaviour of a CVD diamond detector in a future high energy physics experiment. Finally, a position sensitive strip detector is developed and successfully tested. The strip detector reaches a resolution of #delta#_#chi#=8.4 #mu#m with a strip pitch of 50 #mu#m and a strip width of 16 #mu#m at a signal-to-noise ratio of #approx# 5. A computer simulation of the strip detector is qualitatively in good agreement with the experiment dataAvailable from TIB Hannover: RR 8919(1999-022) / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEDEGerman