Dr. Yongbiao Shi, North China University of Water Resources and Electric Power, China

Title: Silicon Carbide Detectors for High Resolution Analysis of Laser Generated Plasma Radiation

Abstract:Silicon Carbide (SiC) is a semiconductor with advantageous physical parameters for manufacturing high performance radiation detectors. The wide bandgap, high breakdown electric field, high saturation velocities of electrons and holes, visible light blindness, high thermal conductivity and radiation hardness make SiC superior to other semiconductors in operating with high performance in harsh environments. We present SiC detectors operated in Time of Flight (TOF) configuration to detect photons, electrons and ions from plasmas generated by a high power, kJ-class laser at the Prague Asterix Laser System (PALS) laboratory. The SiC detectors used in the experiments are circular and interdigitated Ni/SiC Schottky junctions on a 115 μm thick high purity 4H-SiC epitaxial layer. Subnanosecond rise times and pulse width as short as 1 ns have been acquired with 300 ps laser pulses at the 1315 nm fundamental wavelength with intensities up to 1016 W/cm2. Signal amplitudes of tens of volts on 50 ohm loads have been measured with nanosecond time resolution and very high signal to noise ratios. The SiC detectors showed no observable degradation of their performance and characteristics despite they have been used in experiments involving several tens of laser shots.

Keywords: Silicon Carbide, Laser-generated plasma, high resolution