Investigation of the radiation hardness of GaAs:Cr semiconductor detectors irradiated with fast neutrons at the reactor IBR-2

Investigation of the semiconductor detectors properties under neutron irradiation is very important for their practical application. High-resistivity gallium arsenide detectors (GaAs:Cr) were irradiated with various fast neutron fluences in range from 3.9×10n cm−2 to 3.7×1016 cm−2 at the IBR-2 reactor, FLNP, JINR. The neutron fluence was measured by placing silicon planar detectors at the measured points and measuring the 1 MeV (Si) equivalent fast neutron fluence. The charge collection efficiency and the current-voltage characteristics of irradiated detectors were measured, and their degradation after neutron irradiation was compared with the results obtained by irradiation with 21 MeV electrons.