Large Area, Low cost APDs Using Planar Processing

50811-98-I Large Area, Low Cost APDs Using Planar Processing--Radiation Monitoring Devices, Inc., 44 Hunt Street, Watertown, MA 02172-4624; (617) 926-1167 Dr. Gerald Entine, Principal Investigator Dr. Gerald Entine, Business Official DOE Grant No. DE-FG02-98ER82650 Amount: $75,000 Silicon avalanche photodiodes (APDs) have been shown to be nearly an ideal replacement for photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) for use in scintillation spectroscopy. However, large area, high gain APDs are expensive at present due to the necessity of some manual fabrication steps in their production. This project will demonstrate the feasibility of producing large area APDs (up to 1 cm¿) using the standard silicon planar process. The approach is attractive because it has the potential to match the high performance characteristics of standard manual APDs (such as high gain, low noise, and high quantum efficiency) and also be cost effective. Commercial Applications and Other Benefits as described by the awardee: The proposed detectors would find widespread use as a PMT replacement for scintillation studies in various applications such as nuclear and high energy physics research, medical imaging, non-destructive evaluation, X-ray diffraction, and astronomy._