A comparative study of induced damage after irradiation with swift heavy ions, neutrons and electrons in low doped silicon

A systematic study has been performed, investigating the radiation damage i n high purity low doped silicon. During this study we irradiated bulk silic on samples and silicon detectors manufactured from the same bulk material. Identical series of samples (bulk and detectors) were irradiated with diffe rent projectiles: swift heavy ions, neutrons and electrons. The characteriz ation of the samples has been performed with different experimental techniq ues: DLTS, Hall effect, photoluminescence, current-voltage I(V) and capacit ance-voltage C(V) measurements. These measurements allow us to extract some quantitative informations about the radiation damage, in particular the in troduction rates of vacancy-doping and divacancy complexes, and also the le akage current damage constant for irradiated detectors. In order to explain the macroscopic damage starting from the microscopic one, we calculate for each projectile a set of parameters: electronic energy loss, nuclear energ y loss, total displacement cross-section, number of primary knocked-out ato ms, displacement cascade size, density of energy deposited in a cascade by nuclear collisions. The experimental results suggest a way to explain the d ifferences between the radiation damage effects of the different projectile s, taking into account the incidence of the above stated microscopic parame ters. A comparison is made with the results obtained by other authors conce rning the radiation damage of fullerene-irradiated silicon. (C) 1998 Elsevi er Science B.V. All rights reserved.