Development and testing of gallium arsenide photoconductive detectors for ultra-fast, high dose rate electron and photon radiation measurements

Real time radiation dose measurements often present a challenge in high dose rate environments, like those needed for testing survivability of electronic devices or biological agents. Dosimetry needs at particle accelerator facilities require development of devices with fast (tens of picoseconds or less) response to pulsed radiation, linear response over a wide range of dose rates (up to 1011 Gy/s), high resistance to radiation damage, and successful operation in mixed gamma and neutron environments. Gallium arsenide photoconductive detectors (GaAs PCDs) have been shown to exhibit many of these desirable characteristics, especially the fast time response, when neutron irradiation is used to introduce displacement damage in the crystalline lattice of GaAs, hence improving the time response characteristics of the devices at the expense of their sensitivity. The objective of this project was to develop and test GaAs PCDs for ultra fast, high dose rate electron and bremsstrahlung radiation measurements. Effects of neutron pre-irradiation and detector size on the PCD properties were also investigated. GaAs PCDs with three different neutron irradiation levels (0, ∼1014, and 5 x 1015 n/cm 2 (1-MeV equivalent in GaAs) were fabricated. The devices were tested with 7, 20 and 38-MeV electron pulses produced by linear accelerators operating at the L-band frequency of 1.3-GHz and the S-band frequency of 2.8-GHz. In addition, detector responses at high dose rates were tested with 33-ns wide, 7-MeV maximum energy bremsstrahlung pulses produced by a pulse-power accelerator. The time response characteristics and the dose-rate ranges of application of the GaAs PCDs were determined. Several operational issues were identified. Recommendations on how to improve the PCD fabrication procedure and diagnostic capabilities for the high intensity radiation research are also discussed.