Memory effects in CVD diamond

CVD diamond, as other wide energy gap semiconductors or insulators, is known to present polarization effects when used as a nuclear particle detector, which are due to the building up of an internal space-charge electric field and are responsible for “memory” effects if the polarization is not erased. Polarization effects are larger when the thickness of the sample is longer than the drift length of carriers and give rise to a shortening of the electric field region inside the sample. In this work, IBIC (Ion Beam Induced Charge) measurements with 1 and 2 MeV proton beams have been carried out on a relatively thin CVD diamond sample with the conclusion that no memory or hysteresis effects were present even by switching from one polarity to the opposite one in subsequent measurements. However, it resulted that the values of the charge collection efficiency (cce) did depend on counting rate and the lowering at large counting rates was attributed to a local polarization due to trapping. Finally, in some cases cce turned out to be larger than 1, a result which could be either due to local detrapping or to non-blocking contacts.