CVD diamond sensors for charged particle detection

CVD diamond material was used to build position-sensitive detectors for sin gle-charged particles to be employed in high-intensity physics experiments. To obtain position information, metal contacts shaped as strips or pixels are applied to the detector surface for one- or two-dimensional coordinate measurement. Strip detectors 2 x 4 cm(2) in size with a strip distance of 5 0 mum were tested. Pixel detectors of various pixel sizes were bump bonded to electronics chips and investigated. A key issue for the use of these sen sors in high intensity experiments is the radiation hardness. Several irrad iation experiments were carried out with pions, protons and neutrons exceed ing a fluence of 10(15) particles/cm(2). The paper presents an overview of the results obtained with strip and pixel detectors in high-energy test bea ms and summarises the irradiation studies. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. A ll rights reserved.