Model of carrier dynamics in chemical vapor deposition diamond detectors

We propose a quantitative model of electronic transport on the basis of a conductivity characterization of diamond-based sensors exposed to β radiation. Some of the investigated samples have been irradiated with neutron up to a fluence of 2×10¹⁵∕cm². Radiation-induced current measurements have been performed to study the trapping and recombination of deep defect levels in the diamond band gap. We present a quantitative analysis of the passivation of deep traps and the release of carriers during thermal fading between consecutive exposures. We determine the density of trap states per unit volume and per unit energy and their capture cross sections. We also evaluate the modification of these parameters after neutron irradiation. Our analysis gives the cross sections of the traps involved in our measurements with an accuracy of 20–50%, which is far better than that attainable with thermal spectroscopy. Our results on the capture cross section of the recombination centers agree with relevant works presented in literature on natural IIa diamond. We propose that some defects are of the same nature in chemical vapor deposition diamond, but their concentration is far lower in the state-of-the-art material. We also study a modification of the trap level distribution after neutron irradiation. Finally we propose a rationale for the improvement obtained in recent years in the performances of top quality polycrystalline diamond sensors.