Development of a very fast, diamond based spectroscopy device

For various applications, mainly in the medical sector, fast spectroscopy is very important. Recently, single crystal CVD diamond of appreciable size has become available as sensor material. The charge collection properties of the material are good enough to produce detectors with spectroscopic properties. The special properties of diamond, e.g. the very low leakage current, fast signal collection and low dielectric constant, allows production of very fast sensors with very high signal-to-noise ratio and essential zero dark count. The devices are in principle able to operate at particle fluxes up to 1 GHz. The challenge is to develop a desktop system with an appreciable signal-to-noise ratio (good enough for spectroscopy) that can be readout over USB. This will require full characterization of the diamond material, development of better electrodes on the diamond to get more signal out, production of a high voltage system, a readout system and the interfacing with the user. Although many of the components already exist, optimizing them and combining them into a complete system is far from trivial. It is here that the student will play a significant part and perform and exploit the opportunity for original research. Diamond Detectors limited (DDL) is one of the few companies offering single crystal diamond sensors. A fruitful collaboration between DDL and the CERN-based diamond sensor collaboration RD42 already exists. Bristol University is an active member of RD42. Combining the strengths of DDL and the University, the raw material and the knowledge of detector systems, promises to yield a very successful collaboration. It provides an excellent R&D environment for a CASE student to perform state-of-the-art research. The student will spend 75% of his/hers time in the first year at the University of Bristol. In the second year this fraction drops to 50% and in the third year, the student will spend 75% of his/her time at DDL.