Radiation Resistance Study of Semi-Insulating GaAs-Based Radiation Detectors to Extremely High Gamma Doses

In our previous paper [V. Necas et al.: Nucl. Inst. and Meth. A 458 (2001) 348-351] we reported on the study on radiation stability of semi-insulating (SI) LEG GaAs detectors to doses of photons from 60 Co up to 19.2 kGy. Later we presented a study, which covered radiation hardness to the same doses on the base of detector material itself, where strong dependence has been proved [T. Ly Anh et al., Proceedings of the XII th International Conference on Semiconducting and Insulating Materials (SIMC-XII-2002). Smolenice Castle, Slovakia (2002) 292-295 (0-7803-7418-5)]. In this paper we present both the key electrical and detection characteristics of SI GaAs radiation detectors prepared using substrates from four various supplies and two different types of contacts, which were exposed to several gamma doses from 60 Co up to the integral dose of about 1 MGy. The obtained results show that SI LEG GaAs detectors provide good spectroscopic performances and even their slight improvement after low to middle gamma irradiation doses (3 −10 kGy) was observed. Further dose exposure caused the degradation of detection properties with an extreme and following improvement depending on detector material properties. SI GaAs detector still retains its working capabilities even after very high doses applied, up to 1 MGy.