Radiation hardening of silicon strip detectors

We introduce two methods to reduce the surface radiation damage of silicon strip detectors. The microscopic reason of surface radiation damage is mainly due to the generation of radiation induced interface traps. The interface traps formation occurs as a result of a series of processes initiated by the creation of electron-hole pairs in SiO2 layer and the subsequent transport of the holes to the SiO2/Si interface. To prevent the transport of holes to the SiO2/Si interface, we tried two different methods. The leakage current after irradiation decreased by 26% and 67% using these methods. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.