First investigations on the feasibility of integration of a smart sensor in harsh environment 1

S. Ben Krit (1) , W. Rahajandraibe (1) , K. Coulie-Castellani (1) , G. Micolau (1)

1 IM2NP - Institut des Matériaux, de Microélectronique et des Nanosciences de Provence

This very first study takes place in the framework of the I_SMART European project. The final system will consist of one or more detectors in silicon carbide (spectroscopic detector, neutron, gamma …), a readout electronic, a conditioning chain and microprocessor for the signal recognition. The work presented here is dedicated to a first approach of the feasibility of integration of the full system. This system will have to to work in harsh environment in terms of temperature and radiations what makes necessary the development of specifications for operation and reliability of the components and the investigation of margins for the interplay of the components. When an incident particle, emitted by a source of radiation tracks a semiconductor (p-n junction for example), direct generated ions or secondary products from proton or neutron/nucleus interactions generate electron-holes pairs [1]. Then, electrons drift within the semiconductor and diffuse towards a collecting anode inducing a parasitic current. Such kind of behavior is called single effect which differs from cumulative effects (dose effects) that are linked to the presence of oxide in the component [2]. Thus, radiation sensors require pulse processing electronics so that energy or time information involved with radiation interactions (parasitic currents) can be properly extracted. Several types of detectors can be found in literature. Depending on the needs, they can be divided on two broad categories. A lot of detectors are based on SRAM detection which is only able to ensure information about the number of incident particles detected by the sensor. Other detectors are based on collection and amplification by the use of the silicon sensor (p-n junction) as volume in order to provide information about the generated currents characteristics. Generally, the collection is assured by a matrix of pixels to ensure high

Domaines: Micro et nanotechnologies/Microélectronique

S. Ben Krit, W. Rahajandraibe, K. Coulie-Castellani, G. Micolau. First investigations on the feasibility of integration of a smart sensor in harsh environment 1. International Conference on Advancements in Nuclear Instrumentation, Measurements Methods and their Applications (ANIMMA 2013), Jun 2013, Marseille, France. ⟨hal-01793783⟩