High performance 4H–SiC detectors for superheavy elements study

Thermochromatography is widely used in studying the chemical properties of superheavy elements (SHEs) due to its fast and high efficiency, which requires the detector to accurately measure both the position and energy of charged particles emitted by radioactive elements across a range of temperature distributions. 4H–SiC detectors are conducive to work at high temperature environments due to its unique properties. A 4H–SiC Schottky diode array detector for the detection of Nh (Z = 113) elements by thermochromatography is designed and fabricated in this work. An 80 μm thick 4H–SiC epitaxial layer with a doping concentration of lowing than 1 × 10¹⁴ cm⁻³ was designed to achieve a total energy deposition of α particles. The leakage current is 82 nA under −200 V at 80°C. By linear fitting, the relationship between the deposition energy and channel number is expressed as y = 4.72x−166.71, with an R-squared value of 0.9984. The detector's energy resolution in air at 80°C is 1.83%@5486 keV, which is consistent with the 1.75%@5486 keV measured at 26°C in air. The energy resolutions of the array detector for ²⁴¹Am under vacuum ranges from 1.18% to 1.34%, corresponding to a mean spectrum broadening of 69.26 ± 7.51 keV. 4H–SiC detectors satisfy the thermochromatography requirements for operating temperature, energy resolution, energy linearity, and device uniformity, which will be used for Nh elements study in the following experiments.