Semiconductor detectors

Abstract Already since the early 1960s semiconductor detectors have been employed in nuclear physics, in particular for gamma ray energy measurement. This chapter concentrates on position sensitive semiconductor detectors which have been developed in particle physics since the 1980s and which feature position resolutions in the range of 50–100 μm by structuring the electrodes, thus reaching the best position resolutions of electronic detectors. For the first time this made the electronic measurement of secondary vertices and therewith the lifetime of heavy fermions possible. The chapter first conveys the basics of semiconductor physics, of semiconductor and metal-semiconductor junctions used in electronics and detector applications as well as particle detection with semiconductor detectors. It follows the description of different detector types, like strip and pixel detectors, silicon drift chambers and charged-coupled devices. New developments are addressed in the sections on ‘Monolithic pixel detectors’ and on ‘Precision timing with silicon detectors’. In the last sections detector deterioration by radiation damage is described and an overview of other semiconductor detector materials but silicon is given.