Study of physical and chemical inhomogeneities in semiconducting and insulating materials by a combined use of micro-PIXE and micro-IBIC

Micro-IBIC and micro-PIXE have been used on samples of CVD diamond, CdTe and Si, in order to find correlations between the chemical impurities distribution and the transport properties or collection properties of charge carriers. In CdTe and Si, which are relatively good nuclear detectors, chemical impurities contents are largely below PIXE sensitivity, but micro-IBIC is able to determine the electrical field distribution and the carrier trapping times. In CVD diamond, micro-PIXE maps have been measured for a series of impurities, including both light and heavy elements. These impurities are spread out in regions of low crystallographic order and at grain boundaries, leaving probably the true single crystal unaffected. They should be connected with the large trapping effects measured by micro-IBIC in the same regions.