Ion Beam Induced Charge characterization of epitaxial single crystal CVD diamond

IBIC (Ion Beam Induced Charge) technique has been used in order to characterize single crystal epitaxial CVD diamond film with respect to homogeneity and stability of the response (in terms of charge collection efficiency, cce) as a function both of counting rate and of the number of counts per unit surface area. The maximum shift of cce peak, under a 1.2 MeV proton microbeam, is 1.5% for counting rates from 43 to 4330 Hz, while the homogeneity, evaluated as the standard deviation with respect to the average value of cce over strip-like regions 60–100 μm wide and 800–1200 μm long, is 0.5%. Counting rates per unit surface area were between 30 and about 15,000 Hz/mm2. A total number of counts per unit area up to 9 106 counts/mm2 was reached without noticing any polarization effect due to trapped charge. Moreover, the functionality of a new kind of bulk electrode, realized by a boron doped buffer layer laterally contacted with Ag paste, has been checked by measuring cce at different proton ranges.