Radiation hardness of small-pitch 3D pixel sensors up to a fluence of 3×10¹⁶ n_eq/cm²

Small-pitch 3D silicon pixel detectors have been investigated as radiation-hard candidates for the innermost layers of the HL-LHC pixel detector upgrades. Prototype 3D sensors with pixel sizes of 50 × 50 and 25 × 100 μm² connected to the existing ATLAS FE-I4 readout chip have been produced by CNM Barcelona. Irradiations up to particle fluences of 3 × 10¹⁶ n_eq/cm², beyond the full expected HL-LHC fluences at the end of lifetime, have been carried out at Karlsruhe and CERN. The performance of the 50 × 50 μm² devices has been measured in the laboratory and beam tests at CERN SPS. A high charge collected and a high hit efficiency of 98% were found up to the highest fluence. The bias voltage to reach the target efficiency of 97% at perpendicular beam incidence was found to be about 100 V at 1.4 × 10¹⁶ n_eq/cm² and 150 V at 2.8 × 10¹⁶ n_eq/cm², significantly lower than for the previous IBL 3D generation with larger inter-electrode distance and than for planar sensors. The power dissipation at -25°C and 1.4 × 10¹⁶ n_eq/cm² was found to be 13 mW/cm². Hence, 3D pixel detectors demonstrated superior radiation hardness and were chosen as the baseline for the inner layer of the ATLAS HL-LHC pixel detector upgrade.