Study of Neutron Pre-Irradiated Silicon for Nuclear Detectors

The ways of increasing the radiation hardness of silicon were considered. It was then experimentally shown that a preliminary irradiation of the bulk silicon introduces sinks for radiation defects that leads to an increased radiation hardness of the silicon. Neutron transmutation doping of silicon can be considered as one form of preliminary radiation. It was shown that for neutron transmutated silicon the carrier removal rate in NTD after γ-irradiation is more than one order of magnitude smaller than in a standard reference specimen, but the carriers removal rate after neutron irradiation is approximately a factor of two less.