Characterisation of single crystal CVD diamond particle detectors for hadron physics experiments

Characterisation results from a single-crystal CVD diamond detector are reported, which is under development for heavy-ion particle identification and minimum-ionizing particles timing in nuclear physics experiments. The charge collection efficiency is about 100%, never obtained from polycrystalline CVD-diamond detectors. An energy resolution of 20 keV (ΔE/E∼0.004) is achieved using a mixed nuclide α-source, which is comparable to the energy resolution of silicon pin diode detectors. Using low impedance broadband electronics and a ToF technique, where holes or electrons drift separately inside the diamond bulk, the saturation velocity, mobility and lifetime of both charge carriers are estimated. In addition the thermoluminescent properties of the new material are discussed in comparison to polycrystalline diamond. A much lower density of trapping centres has been found for single-crystal CVD diamond. (copyright 2005 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH and Co. KGaA, Weinheim) (orig.)