Evolution of Silicon Sensor Technology in Particle Physics

Frank Hartman June 2017 https://link-springer-com.ezproxy.cern.ch/book/10.1007/978-3-319-64436-3

• first introduced in the DELPHI experiment at LEP, but soon followed by all collider experiments to date.
• the readout electronics evolved from microsecond to nanosecond integration times and to radiation-tolerant sub-micron technology devices.
• earth consists of, at least the upper crust, silicon and oxygen with some dirt (in the form of the other 90 elements) thrown in for added value.
• Silicon sensors have a very good intrinsic energy resolution: for every 3.6 eV released by a particle crossing the medium, one electron–hole pair is produced. Compared to about 30 eV required to ionise a gas molecule in a gaseous detector, one gets 10 times the number of particles in silicon. The average energy loss of a minimum ionising particle in silicon is 390 eV/μm, creating 108 (electron–hole pairs)/μm; these values being high due to the high density of silicon.

• The mobilities in silicon are quite high and therefore suited for the use as HEP detectors resulting in below 10 ns collection/readout time in silicon sensors of several 100 μm thickness.