The rate dependent radiation induced signal degradation of diamond detectors

The BCML system is a beam monitoring device in the CMS experiment at the LHC. As detectors poly-crystalline diamond sensors are used. Here high particle rates occur from the colliding beams scattering particles outside the beam pipe. These particles cause defects, which act as traps for the ionization, thus reducing the CCE. However, the loss in CCE was much more severe than expected. The reason why in real experiments the CCE is so much worse than in laboratory experiments is related to the rate of incident particles. At high particle rates the trapping rate of the ionization is so high compared with the detrapping rate, that space charge builds up. This space charge reduces locally the internal electric field, which in turn increases the trapping rate and hence reduces the CCE even further. In order to connect these macroscopic measurements with the microscopic defects acting as traps for the ionization charge the TCAD simulation program SILVACO was used. Two effective acceptor and donor levels were needed to fit the data. Using this effective defect model the highly non- linear rate dependent diamond polarization as function of the particle rate environment and the resulting signal loss could be simulated.