Viegas, R., Roser, J., Barrientos, L., Borja-Lloret, M., Casaña, J. V., Lopez, J. G., et al. (2023). Characterization of a Compton camera based on the TOFPET2 ASIC. Radiat. Phys. Chem., 202, 110507–11pp.
Abstract: The use of Compton cameras for medical imaging and its interest as a hadron therapy treatment monitoring has increased in the last decade with the development of silicon photomultipliers. MACACOp is a Compton camera prototype designed and assembled at the IRIS group of IFIC-Valencia. This Compton camera is based on monolithic Lanthanum (III) Bromide crystals and silicon photomultipliers, and employs the novel TOFPET2 ASIC as readout electronics. This system emerged as an alternative to MACACO II prototype, with the aim of improving its limited time resolution. To test the performance of the ASIC in a Compton camera setup, the prototype was characterized, both in laboratory and in-beam. A time resolution of 1.5 ns was obtained after time corrections, which improves greatly the performance of the MACACO II. Moreover, the results obtained at high photon energies demonstrate the ability of the system to obtain 1 mm displacements of the reconstructed spots. The results reinforce the potential of the system as a monitoring device for hadron therapy.
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Latonova, V. et al, Bernabeu, J., Lacasta, C., Solaz, C., & Soldevila, U. (2023). Characterization of the polysilicon resistor in silicon strip sensors for ATLAS inner tracker as a function of temperature, pre- and post-irradiation. Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A, 1050, 168119–5pp.
Abstract: The high luminosity upgrade of the Large Hadron Collider, foreseen for 2029, requires the replacement of the ATLAS Inner Detector with a new all-silicon Inner Tracker (ITk). The expected ultimate total integrated luminosity of 4000 fb(-1) means that the strip part of the ITk detector will be exposed to the total particle fluences and ionizing doses reaching the values of 1.6 center dot 10(15) MeVn(eq)/cm(2) and 0.66MGy, respectively, including a safety factor of 1.5. Radiation hard n(+)-in-p micro-strip sensors were developed by the ATLAS ITk strip collaboration and are produced by Hamamatsu Photonics K.K. The active area of each ITk strip sensor is delimited by the n-implant bias ring, which is connected to each individual n(+) implant strip by a polysilicon bias resistor. The total resistance of the polysilicon bias resistor should be within a specified range to keep all the strips at the same potential, prevent the signal discharge through the grounded bias ring and avoid the readout noise increase. While the polysilicon is a ubiquitous semiconductor material, the fluence and temperature dependence of its resistance is not easily predictable, especially for the tracking detector with the operational temperature significantly below the values typical for commercial microelectronics. Dependence of the resistance of polysilicon bias resistor on the temperature, as well as on the total delivered fluence and ionizing dose, was studied on the specially-designed test structures called ATLAS Testchips, both before and after their irradiation by protons, neutrons, and gammas to the maximal expected fluence and ionizing dose. The resistance has an atypical negative temperature dependence. It is different from silicon, which shows that the grain boundary has a significant contribution to the resistance. We discuss the contributions by parameterizing the activation energy of the polysilicon resistance as a function of the temperature for unirradiated and irradiated ATLAS Testchips.
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Goasduff, A. et al, & Gadea, A. (2021). The GALILEO gamma-ray array at the Legnaro National Laboratories. Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A, 1015, 165753–15pp.
Abstract: GALILEO, a new 4 pi high-resolution gamma-detection array, based on HPGe detectors, has been developed and installed at the Legnaro National Laboratories. The GALILEO array greatly benefits from a fully-digital readout chain, customized DAQ, and a variety of complementary detectors to improve the resolving power by the detection of particles, ions or high-energy gamma-ray transitions. In this work, a full description of the array, including electronics and DAQ, is presented together with its complementary instrumentation.
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Barrientos, L., Borja-Lloret, M., Etxebeste, A., Muñoz, E., Oliver, J. F., Ros, A., et al. (2021). Performance evaluation of MACACO II Compton camera. Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A, 1014, 165702–7pp.
Abstract: The IRIS group at IFIC-Valencia has developed a second version of a Compton camera prototype for hadron therapy treatment monitoring, with the aim of improving the performance with respect to its predecessor. The system is composed of three Lanthanum (III) bromide (LaBr3) crystals coupled to silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs). The detector energy resolution has been improved to 5.6% FWHM at 511 keV and an angular resolution of 8.0 degrees has been obtained. Images of a Na-22 point-like source have been reconstructed selecting two and three interaction events. Moreover, the experimental data have been reproduced with Monte Carlo simulations using a Compton camera module (CCMod) in GATE v8.2 obtaining a good correlation.
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Balibrea-Correa, J., Lerendegui-Marco, J., Calvo, D., Caballero, L., Babiano, V., Ladarescu, I., et al. (2021). A first prototype of C6D6 total-energy detector with SiPM readout for neutron capture time-of-flight experiments. Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A, 985, 164709–8pp.
Abstract: Low efficiency total-energy detectors (TEDs) are one of the main tools for neutron capture cross section measurements utilizing the time-of-flight (TOF) technique. State-of-the-art TEDs are based on a C6D6 liquid-scintillation cell optically coupled to a fast photomultiplier tube. The large photomultiplier tube represents yet a significant contribution to the so-called neutron sensitivity background, which is one of the most conspicuous sources of uncertainty in this type of experiments. Here we report on the development of a first prototype of a TED based on a silicon-photomultiplier (SiPM) readout, thus resulting in a lightweight and much more compact detector. Apart from the envisaged improvement in neutron sensitivity, the new system uses low voltage (+28 V) and low current supply (-50 mA), which is more practical than the-kV supply required by conventional photomultipliers. One important difficulty hindering the earlier implementation of SiPM readout for this type of detector was the large capacitance for the output signal when all pixels of a SiPM array are summed together. The latter leads to long pulse rise and decay times, which are not suitable for time-of-flight experiments. In this work we demonstrate the feasibility of a Schottky-diode multiplexing readout approach, that allows one to preserve the excellent timing properties of SiPMs, hereby paving the way for their implementation in future neutron TOF experiments.
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Fernandez-Tejero, J., Bartl, U., Docke, M., Fadeyev, V., Fleta, C., Hacker, J., et al. (2020). Design and evaluation of large area strip sensor prototypes for the ATLAS Inner Tracker detector. Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A, 981, 164536–6pp.
Abstract: The ATLAS community is facing the last stages prior to the production of the upgraded silicon strip Inner Tracker for the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider. An extensive Market Survey was carried out in order to evaluate the capability of different foundries to fabricate large area silicon strip sensors, satisfying the ATLAS specifications. The semiconductor manufacturing company, Infineon Technologies AG, was one of the two foundries, along with Hamamatsu Photonics K.K., that reached the last stage of the evaluation for the production of the new devices. The full prototype wafer layout for the participation of Infineon, called ATLAS17LS-IFX, was designed using a newly developed Python-based Automatic Layout Generation Tool, able to rapidly design sensors with different characteristics and dimensions based on a few geometrical and technological input parameters. This work presents the layout design process and the results obtained from the evaluation of the new Infineon large area sensors before and after proton and neutron irradiations, up to fluences expected in the inner layers of the future ATLAS detector.
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Fernandez-Tejero, J. et al, & Soldevila, U. (2020). Humidity sensitivity of large area silicon sensors: Study and implications. Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A, 978, 164406–6pp.
Abstract: The production of large area sensors is one of the main challenges that the ATLAS collaboration faces for the new Inner-Tracker full-silicon detector. During the prototype fabrication phase for the High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider upgrade, several ATLAS institutes observed indications of humidity sensitivity of large area sensors, even at relative humidities well below the dew point. Specifically, prototype Barrel and End-Cap silicon strip sensors fabricated in 6-inch wafers manifest a prompt decrease of the breakdown voltage when operating under high relative humidity, adversely affecting the performance of the sensors. In addition to the investigation of these prototype sensors, a specific fabrication batch with special passivation is also studied, allowing for a deeper understanding of the responsible mechanisms. This work presents an extensive study of this behaviour on large area sensors. The locations of the hotspots at the breakdown voltage at high humidity are revealed using different infrared thermography techniques. Several palliative treatments are attempted, proving the influence of sensor cleaning methods, as well as baking, on the device performance, but no improvement on the humidity sensitivity was achieved. Furthermore, a study of the incidence of the sensitivity in different batches is also presented, introducing a hypothesis of the origins of the humidity sensitivity associated to the sensor edge design, together with passivation thickness and conformity. Several actions to be taken during sensor production and assembly are extracted from this study, in order to minimize the impact of humidity sensitivity on the performance of large area silicon sensors for High Energy Physics experiments.
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Helling, C. et al, Bernabeu, J., Lacasta, C., & Solaz, C. (2020). Strip sensor performance in prototype modules built for ATLAS ITk. Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A, 978, 164402–6pp.
Abstract: ATLAS experiment is preparing an upgrade of its detector for High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) operation. The upgrade involves installation of the new all-silicon Inner Tracker (ITk). In the context of the ITk preparations, more than 80 strip modules were built with prototype barrel sensors. They were tested with electrical readout on a per-channel basis. In general, an excellent performance was observed, consistent with previous ASIC-level and sensor-level tests. However, the lessons learned included two phenomena important for the future phases of the project. First was the need to store and test the modules in a dry environment due to humidity sensitivity of the sensors. The second was an observation of high noise regions for 2 modules. The high noise regions were tested further in several ways, including monitoring the performance as a function of time and bias voltage. Additionally, direct sensor-level tests were performed on the affected channels. The inter-strip resistance and bias resistance tests showed low values, indicating a temporary loss of the inter-strip isolation. A subsequent recovery of the noise performance was observed. We present the test details, an analysis of how the inter-strip isolation affects the module noise, and the relationship with sensor-level quality control tests.
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Capra, S., Mengoni, D., Dueñas, J. A., John, P. R., Gadea, A., Aliaga, R. J., et al. (2019). Performance of the new integrated front-end electronics of the TRACE array commissioned with an early silicon detector prototype. Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A, 935, 178–184.
Abstract: The spectroscopic performances of the new integrated ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit) preamplifiers for highly segmented silicon detectors have been evaluated with an early silicon detector prototype of the TRacking Array for light Charged Ejectiles (TRACE). The ASICS were mounted on a custom-designed PCB (Printed Circuit Board) and the detector plugged on it. Energy resolution tests, performed on the same detector before and after irradiation, yielded a resolution of 21 keV and 33 keV FWHM respectively. The output signals were acquired with an array of commercial 100-MHz 14-bit digitizers. The preamplifier chip is equipped with an innovative Fast-Reset device that has two functions: it reduces dramatically the dead time of the preamplifier in case of saturation (from milliseconds to microseconds) and extends the spectroscopic dynamic range of the preamplifier by more than one order of magnitude. Other key points of the device are the low noise and the wide bandwidth.
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Llosa, G. (2019). SiPM-based Compton cameras. Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A, 926, 148–152.
Abstract: Compton cameras have been developed for almost fifty years in various fields (astronomy, medical imaging, safety and industrial inspections, etc.), employing different types of detectors. Their potential use has gained renewed interest with the emergence of high light yield scintillator crystals and silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs). This combination provides good performance and operation simplicity at an affordable cost, raising again the interest in this type of systems. SiPM-based Compton cameras are being assessed for diverse applications with promising results.
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