Guidance on Thickness Design for Wide-Bandgap Semiconductor Thermal Neutron Detectors with Layered Structure and Research on Their Microscopic Radiation Resistance

Zhang, Zhongming and Aspinall, Michael and Monk, Stephen (2024) Guidance on Thickness Design for Wide-Bandgap Semiconductor Thermal Neutron Detectors with Layered Structure and Research on Their Microscopic Radiation Resistance. PhD thesis, Lancaster University.

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Abstract

In semiconductor neutron detectors with a layered structure, the fundamental structure consists of a converter layer and a semiconductor layer. It has been shown in research focused on these detectors that the thicknesses of both the converter and semiconductor layers crucially impact the efficiency of neutron detection. However, there is a notable scarcity of studies that determine the optimal thickness of the converter layer and the corresponding optimal thickness of the semiconductor layer, especially using direct theoretical formulas for the efficiency of the converter layer. This lack of research is particularly evident for wide-bandgap semiconductor materials such as diamond, silicon carbide (SiC), gallium oxide (Ga2O3), gallium nitride (GaN), and the perovskite material caesium lead bromide (CsPbBr3). Herein, on the basis of theoretical studies about the efficiency of layered semiconductor detectors, a systematic method has been proposed for calculating the optimal thicknesses for two types of converter layers. This method has been implemented in computational software. By inputting the macroscopic cross-section