Low capacitance large volume shaped-field germanium detector

Abstract

A large-volume (150 cm/sup 3/) germanium detector with a full-depletion capacitance of only approximately=1 pf has been fabricated. The effect of impurity space charge was utilized to obtain an appropriate electric field distribution in the detector so that carriers are collected on a small-area electrode. Detectors based on this principle are capable of very-low-noise operation and have immediate applications in experiments for the direct detection of dark matter. Detector pulse shapes and carrier-trapping effects were also examined for possible applications involving higher energy radiations.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>