Double peak electric field distortion in heavily irradiated silicon strip detectors

Non-uniform distribution of the electric field outlined as double peak distortion (DPD) is considered for heavily irradiated silicon strip detectors, which were developed for the CERN-ATLAS semiconductor tracker. DPD originates from the non-uniform accumulation of electrons and holes from the bulk generated current that are captured by radiation induced defects: deep acceptors and donors with mid-gap energy levels. This corresponds to the formation of the low electric field region in the detector central part that consequently will delay charge collection. The electric field distributions at different reverse biases, fluences and detector operational temperatures are calculated using a one-dimensional Poisson equation as it was done earlier for pad detectors. It has been shown that due to the electric field focusing at the strips the DPD effect is more pronounced for strip detectors as compared to that in pad detectors. The double peak electric field distribution is evinced experimentally in current pulse response shape when the charge is collected along the strip axis.