Experimental Determination of the Charge Carrier Transport Models for Improving the Simulation of the HR GaAs:Cr Detectors’ Response

Abstract

The response of Timepix3 detectors with 300 µm and 500 µm thick HR GaAs:Cr sensors was studied with particle beams at the Danish Centre for Particle Therapy in Aarhus, Denmark. Therefore, the detectors were irradiated at different angles with protons of 240 MeV. The precise per-pixel time and energy measurements were exploited in order to determine the charge carrier transport properties. Using the tracks left by the penetrating charged particles hitting the sensor at the grazing angle, we were able to determine the charge collection efficiency, the charge carrier drift times across the sensor thickness, the dependency of the electron, and for the first time, the hole drift velocity on the electric field. Moreover, extracting the dependence of the charge cloud size on the interaction depth for different bias voltages, it was possible to determine the dependence of the diffusion coefficient on the applied bias voltage. A good agreement was found with the previously reported values for n-type GaAs. The measurements were conducted for different detector assemblies to estimate the systematic differences between them, and to generalize the results. The experimental findings were implemented into the Allpix Squared simulation framework and validated by a comparison of the measurement and simulation for the 241Am γ-ray source.