CVD diamond sensors: extreme materials for extreme conditions

摘要

Chemical Vapour Deposition Diamond has extreme chemical, radiological and mechanical robustness, very high electronic speed and thermal conductivity and a wide range of high optical transparency - and a very sharp response cut at bandwidth. This is at 5.5eV=224nm i.e. in the far vacuum UV. Up until recently, diamond has beeen regarded as a good insulator, with low potential in collecting or transporting electric charge within bulk wafers, that sensors or optoelectronic devices were considered impossible. Over the last 5 years we and other groups have participated with several manufacturers in creating a characterisation feed-back loop which has successfully solved the charge collection problem.