Silicon Carbide (SiC) is a wide bandgap semiconductor with many excellent properties that make it one of the most promising and well-studied materials for radiation particle detection. This review provides an overview of the main advantages in the use of SiC detectors and the current state of research in this field. Key aspects related to material properties, growth techniques, doping, defects, electrical contacts, and characterization methods are summarized, with particular emphasis on how these can be related to detector performance. The most recent and significant experimental results on the use of SiC diodes for the detection of electrons, protons, alpha, ions, UV radiation, x/γ-rays, and neutrons are discussed. The effects of high temperature operation and radiation damage on detector performance are outlined.
Nuclear fragmentation measurements are necessary when using heavy-ion beams in hadrontherapy to predict the effects of the ion nuclear interactions within the human body. Moreover, they are also fundamental to validate and improve the Monte Carlo codes for their use in planning tumor treatments. Nowadays, a very limited set of carbon fragmentation cross sections are being measured, and in particular, to our knowledge, no double-differential fragmentation cross sections at intermediate energies are available in the literature. In this work, we have measured the double-differential cross sections and the angular distributions of the secondary fragments produced in the (12)C fragmentation at 62 A MeV on a thin carbon target. The experimental data have been used to benchmark the prediction capability of the Geant4 Monte Carlo code at intermediate energies, where it was never tested before. In particular, we have compared the experimental data with the predictions of two Geant4 nuclear reaction models: the Binary Light Ions Cascade and the Quantum Molecular Dynamic. From the comparison, it has been observed that the Binary Light Ions Cascade approximates the angular distributions of the fragment production cross sections better than the Quantum Molecular Dynamic model. However, the discrepancies observed between the experimental data and the Monte Carlo simulations lead to the conclusion that the prediction capability of both models needs to be improved at intermediate energies.
This Letter reports a study of the highly debated structure through the one-neutron transfer reaction at 100 MeV. The energy spectrum is measured up to 4.6 MeV and angular distributions corresponding to different excitation energy regions are reported for the first time. The comparison between data and theoretical predictions, including pairing correlation effects, shows the existence of a resonance at excitation energy, while no evidence for a significant -wave contribution close to the threshold energy is observed. Moreover, two high-lying structures are populated at 1.5 and 2.9 MeV. The corresponding angular distributions suggest a significant partial-wave contribution for the 1.5 MeV structure and a mixing of configurations at higher energy, with the partial-wave contributing the most to the cross section.
1 January 2025 in Journal of Synchrotron Radiation
For many synchrotron radiation experiments, it is critical to perform continuous, real-time monitoring of the X-ray flux for normalization and stabilization purposes. Traditional transmission-mode monitors included metal mesh foils and ionization chambers, which suffered from low signal stability and size constraints. Solid-state detectors are now considered superior alternatives for many applications, offering appealing features like compactness and signal stability. However, silicon-based detectors suffer from poor radiation resistance, and diamond detectors are limited in scalability and are expensive to produce. Silicon carbide (SiC) has recently emerged as an alternative to both materials, offering a high-quality mature semiconductor with high thermal conductivity and radiation hardness. This study focuses on a systematic exploration of the SiC `free-standing membrane' devices developed by SenSiC GmbH. In particular, we performed in-depth sensor-response analysis with photon energies ranging from tender (1.75 keV) to hard (10 keV) X-rays at the Four-Crystal Monochromator beamline in the PTB laboratory at the synchrotron radiation facility BESSY II, studying uniformity of transmission and responsivity compared with the state-of-the-art beam monitors. Furthermore, we theoretically evaluated the expected signal in different regions of the sensors, also taking into account the effect of charge diffusion from the SiC substrate in the case of the not-carved region.
FLASH radiotherapy, which employs ultra-high dose rate (UHDR) beams with a mean dose rate > 40 Gy/s and a total irradiation time < 200 ms to treat tumors, exhibits remarkable ability to spare healthy tissue while maintaining the same efficiency in treating tumors. However, UHDR presents challenges in dosimetry and beam monitoring, as the dosimeters recommended for conventional radiotherapy, i.e. the ionization chambers, show saturation at such high dose rates and dose delivered per pulse and hence cannot be employed for accurate dosimetry in the future clinical transition of FLASH radiotherapy. This implies the need to develop alternative techniques and dosimeters able to sustain the peculiar conditions of the UHDR beams. This study investigates the feasibility of using a new generation of Silicon Carbide (SiC) detectors for the measurement of the instantaneous dose rate of UHDR electron beams. An experimental investigation was conducted with the ElectronFLASH linac developed by the SIT Sordina company and able to accelerate 7 and 9 MeV electron pulsed beams at FLASH regimes. The signals produced in the SiC detectors were acquired and compared with the signals detected by the monitoring system currently mounted along the LINAC, i.e. two AC current transformers supplied by the Bergoz company. The main purpose of the experiment was to demonstrate the capability of the developed SiC detector to measure the single pulse duration and waveform with high time resolution and accuracy. The test was performed by using both 7 and 9 MeV electron beams and has shown promising results.