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Bach, E.

Publications and source records attributed to Bach, E..

Establishing the Quality Assurance programme for the strip sensor production of the ATLAS tracker upgrade including irradiation with neutrons, photons and protons to HL-LHC fluences

The successful pre-production delivery of strip sensors for the new Inner Tracker (ITk) for the upgraded ATLAS detector at the High Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) at CERN was completed and based on their performance full production has commenced. The overall delivery period is anticipated to last 4 years to complete the approximately 22000 sensors required for the ITk. For Quality Assurance (QA), a number of test structures designed by the collaboration, along with a large area diode and miniature version of the main sensor, are produced in every wafer by the foundry Hamamatsu Photonics K.K (HPK). As well as Quality Control (QC) checks on every main sensor, samples of the QA pieces from each delivery batch are tested both before and after irradiation with results after exposure to neutrons, gammas or protons to fluences and doses corresponding to those anticipated after operation at the HL-LHC to roughly 1.5 times the ultimate integrated luminosity of 4000 fb -1 . In this paper the procedures are presented and the studies carried out to establish that the seven ITk QA Strip Sensor irradiation and test sites meet all the requirements to support this very extensive programme throughout the strip sensor production phase for the ITk project.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

Analysis of humidity sensitivity of silicon strip sensors for ATLAS upgrade tracker, pre- and post-irradiation

During the prototyping phase of the new ATLAS Inner-Tracker (ITk) strip sensors, a degradation of the device breakdown voltage at high humidity was observed. Although the degradation was temporary, showing a fast recovery in dry conditions, the study of the influence of humidity on the sensor performance was critical to establish counter-measures and handling protocols during production testing in order to ensure the proper performance of the upgraded detector. The work presented here has the objective to study for the first time the breakdown voltage deterioration in presence of ambient humidity of ATLAS ITk production-layout strip sensors with different surface properties, before and after proton, neutron and gamma irradiations. A study of the humidity sensitivity of miniature ATLAS ITk strip sensors, before and after proton irradiations, is also presented to compare the sensitivity of devices with different sizes. The sensors were also exposed for several days to high humidity with the aim to recreate and evaluate the influence of the detector integration environment expected during the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) Long Shutdown 3 (LS3) in 2026, where the sensors will be exposed to ambient humidity for prolonged times.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Characterization of the polysilicon resistor in silicon strip sensors for ATLAS inner tracker as a function of temperature, pre- and post-irradiation

The high luminosity upgrade of the Large Hadron Collider, foreseen for 2029, requires the replacement of the ATLAS Inner Detector with a new all-silicon Inner Tracker (ITk). The expected ultimate total integrated luminosity of 4000 fb –1 means that the strip part of the ITk detector will be exposed to the total particle fluences and ionizing doses reaching the values of 1.6 · 10 15 1 MeV n eq /cm 2 and 0.66 MGy, respectively, including a safety factor of 1.5. Radiation hard n + -in-p micro-strip sensors were developed by the ATLAS ITk strip collaboration and are produced by Hamamatsu Photonics K.K. The active area of each ITk strip sensor is delimited by the n-implant bias ring, which is connected to each individual n + implant strip by a polysilicon bias resistor. The total resistance of the polysilicon bias resistor should be within a specified range to keep all the strips at the same potential, prevent the signal discharge through the grounded bias ring and avoid the readout noise increase. While the polysilicon is a ubiquitous semiconductor material, the fluence and temperature dependence of its resistance is not easily predictable, especially for the tracking detector with the operational temperature significantly below the values typical for commercial microelectronics. Dependence of the resistance of polysilicon bias resistor on the temperature, as well as on the total delivered fluence and ionizing dose, was studied on the specially-designed test structures called ATLAS Testchips, both before and after their irradiation by protons, neutrons, and gammas to the maximal expected fluence and ionizing dose. The resistance has an atypical negative temperature dependence. It is different from silicon, which shows that the grain boundary has a significant contribution to the resistance. Finally, we discuss the contributions by parameterizing the activation energy of the polysilicon resistance as a function of the temperature for unirradiated and irradiated ATLAS Testchips.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Pre-production results from ATLAS ITk Strip Sensors Quality Assurance Testchip

The production of strip sensors within the framework of the ATLAS Inner Tracker (ITk) development is a process which requires continuous evaluation during the full production period (about 4 years). Such an evaluation is divided into two different parts: Quality Control (QC), which focuses on the final product (the actual sensors) and tries to identify possible defects once the fabrication is completed, and Quality Assurance (QA), which aims to prevent deviations in the manufacturing process and uses specifically-designed test structures. The initial sensor pre-production consists of 5% (1041 sensors) of the total number of sensors expected during production. As part of pre-production, the collaboration has measured key parameters from miniature strip sensors (minis), monitor diodes (MD8), and the ATLAS Testchip, before and after irradiation. In this contribution we focus on the analysis of the results of the MD8 and the Testchip. All parameters have been obtained from the test structures (MD8, bias resistors, interdigitated structures, field oxide capacitors, coupling capacitors, punch-through protection structures and cross-bridge resistors) measured at the different test sites (KEK/Tsukuba, Birmingham, Toronto, Ljubljana, Valencia, Carleton, Prague, CNM-Barcelona). The results are compared to predefined pre- and post-irradiation specifications for each tested parameter.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗