Charge transport and X-ray dosimetry performance of a single crystal CVD diamond device fabricated with pulsed laser deposited electrodes

The deposition of amorphous Carbon mixed with Nickel (C/Ni) as electrodes for a diamond radiation detector using Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) was demonstrated previously as a novel technique for producing near-tissue equivalent X-ray dosimeters based on polycrystalline diamond. In this study, we present the first characterisation of a single crystal CVD diamond sandwich detector (of 80 nm thickness) fabricated with this method, labelled SC-C/Ni. To examine the performance of PLD C/Ni as an electrical contact, alpha spectroscopy and x-ray induced photocurrents were studied as a function of applied bias voltage at room temperature and compared to those of polycrystalline CVD diamond detectors (PC-C/Ni); the spectroscopy data allows us to separate electron and hole contributions to the charge transport, whereas the X-ray data was investigated in terms of, linearity and dose rate dependence, sensitivity, signal to noise ratio, photoconductive gain, reproducibility and time response (rise and fall-off times). In the case of electron sensitive alpha induced signals, a charge collection efficiency (CCE) higher than 90 % has been observed at a bias of -40 V and 100 % CCE at -300 V, with an energy resolution of ∼3 % for 5.49 MeV alpha particles. The hole sample showed very poor spectroscopy performance for hole sensitive signals up to 200 Volt; this inhibited a similar numerical analysis to be carried out in a meaningful way. The dosimetric characteristic show a high signal to noise ratio (SNR) of ∼7.3x103, an approximately linear relationship between the photocurrent and the dose rate and a sensitivity of 4.87 μC/Gy.mm3. The photoconductive gain is estimated to around 20, this gain might be supported by hole trapping effects as indicated in the alpha spectroscopy. The observed rise and fall-off times are less than 2 and 0.56 seconds, respectively - and mainly reflect the switching time of the X-ray tube used.The reproducibility of (0.504 %) approaches the value recommended by the IAEA (∼ 0.5 %) and hence minor improvements in processing parameters and device geometry have the potential to fulfil this requirement.