Papers by Keyword: Alpha Particles

Abstract: Am-241 is an alpha emitting isotope which can be used to fuel a nuclear battery via alphavoltaic effect by using a semiconductor to convert alpha radiation to electricity. The main issue of alphavoltaic battery is the radiation damage due to high energy alpha particle, resulted in a rapid decline in performance. Zinc oxide (ZnO) is known as a semiconductor with high radiation tolerance. In this study, the effect of annealing temperature to ZnO crystal was studied along with its alteration due to Am-241 irradiation overtime. The annealing temperatures were set at 450°C and 650°C. The irradiation process was carried out using Am-241 isotope for 12 days with an activity of 44.85 mCi and approximately 0.0866 MGy of absorbed dose. The crystal structure of fabricated and irradiated ZnO were investigated through X-ray Diffraction (XRD). The XRD diffraction pattern indicates that the crystal structure of ZnO is hexagonal wurtzite and still maintained after irradiation process. Raising the annealing temperature from 450°C to 650°C leads to a reduction in peak intensity. This change correlates with an increase in grain size post-irradiation. After exposure to alpha particle radiation, changes occurred in the diffraction peaks of ZnO. At 450°C annealing temperature, the intensity decreased by 94.822%, while at 650°C annealing temperature, the intensity decrease was 85.489%. This shows that increasing the annealing temperature can reduce the decrease in intensity after irradiation with alpha particles. The (002) plane shifted by 0.057˚ at 450°C annealing temperature and by 0.042˚ at 650°C after irradiation. In addition, the crystal lattice parameters increased after irradiation, which led to a change in the FWHM value and an increase in the crystal grain size.

Abstract: The track etch detector, CR-39, in common use is the most sensitive to recording charged particles. The CR-39 polymer samples were irradiated with alpha particle at different energies (2.17 MeV and 3.95 MeV) and fixed fluence followed by chemical etching with different times (1.50, 3.00 and 6.00 hrs). The formed tracks in CR-39 due to irradiations were visualized by using etching technique. The optical properties of CR-39 polymer after etching processes were studied with ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) spectroscopy. Moreover, the optical band gap energy was calculated for the different etching times (1.50, 3.00 and 6.00 hrs). The average value of the track diameter of irradiation at 2.17 MeV and etching time 1.5 hr is fairly large compared with its value at 3.95 MeV. This is due to the production of defect levels in the band gap of polymer at the 2.17 MeV. The virgin and 2.17 MeV samples at 3.00 and 6.00 hrs have the same optical behavior resulted in the etching solution at those etching times has reached the end of the alpha particle path and progress in all the directions in the bulk of CR-39 with the same rate.

Abstract: Defects in electron-irradiated 6H-SiC diodes have been studied by single alpha particle induced charge transient spectroscopy and deep level transient spectroscopy (DLTS) in order to identify critical defects responsible for the charge collection efficiency (CCE) decreased by high-energy electron irradiation. The defect X2 detected by the charge transient spectroscopy and the electron trap Ei detected by the DLTS had a similar activation energy of around 0.50 eV. In addition, the annealing at 200oC completely removed defects X2 and Ei, and restored the CCE. The defect X2 is attributed to the electron trap Ei, and responsible for the decreased CCE.

Abstract: The achievement of nuclear detectors in Silicon Carbide imposes severe constraints on the electronic quality and thickness of the material due to the relatively high value of the energy required to generate an electron-hole pair (7.8 eV) in this material compared to the value for Si (3.6 eV). In this work, 4H-SiC charged particle detectors were realised using epitaxial layers of n-type doping as active region. The thickness of the epilayer is always below 80 μm with a net doping concentration in the range of 8 x 1013 to 1016 cm-3. These properties allowed the fabrication of Schottky diodes that operate well as radiation detectors. At low doping concentration, the epilayer is totally depleted at quite low reverse bias (≈ 50 V), thereby obtaining the maximum active volume.

Abstract: We present the results of time-resolved photoluminescence (TRPL) and optically detected microwave resonance (ODMR) spectroscopy investigations of semiconductor quantum dots and quantum wells. The ODMR spectra of InAs/GaAs QDs were detected via modulation of the total intensity of the QDs emission induced by 95 GHz microwave excitation and exciton fine structure was studied. Very long life times (up to 10 ns) of photoexcited carriers were observed in this system using TRPL at low temperatures and excitation intensities promising higher responsitivity of such QDs for quantum dot infrared photodetector development. The effects of proton and alpha particles irradiation on carrier dynamics were investigated on different InGaAs/GaAs, InAlAs/AlGaAs and GaAs/AlGaAs QD and QW systems. The obtained results demonstrated that carrier lifetimes in the QDs are much less affected by proton irradiation than that in QWs. A strong influence of irradiation on the PL intensity was observed in multiple QWs after high-energy alpha particles irradiation.