Currently I’m trying to make a working version of a radioactivity detector that uses semiconductor as a sensor. It’s a different approach than Geiger-Muller detectors or ionization chambers, more complicated, but also much more interesting.
While Geiger-Muller counters can only provide information about the amount of particles in a period of time, semiconductor detectors can also measure their energy, so it’s possible to say much more about the nature of observed ionizing radiation. Some of the disadvantages of these detectors are that they are more expensive, complex and sensitivity may degrade over time.
The current version doesn’t work, but I think it’s so interesting concept that I’ve written this entry anyway.
The idea is that when ionizing particle (alpha, beta or gamma) is blocked by the p-n junction, a small amount of the energy is released. It has a form of a current spike and can be observed by the next stages of the device.
The p-n junction is just a diode polarized reverse-biased. To make the working area of the p-n junction bigger, a photodiode is used. I know that there also exists specialized versions that are more sensitive, however, I couldn’t find any in any online electronic shops.
In my design, the sensor is D1, it’s polarized by R1, and C1, R2, L1 (those last three elements are making a low band filter to block noise from power supply, they should be as close to D1 as possible).
The first stage of an amplifier is based on a N-JFET to minimize current sink from the measured circuit, in addition, this type of transistors are extremely fast (that’s why they are used widely in RF designs). To reduce parasitic currents between PCB traces, this part is mounted “in the air”. EMI that could affect this stage are reduced by a small mass connected shield made from copper and aluminium tape.
Next two steps are high pass amplifiers. Since the signal is very small and those are not rail-to-rail opamps, a symmetrical power supply or virtual mass should be used. I’ve forgotten about that so lately I just used additional AA battery connected between negative power pin of the opamp and ground.
There are three outputs: raw, high/low (R10, R11, IC1C) and integrated over a period of time (IC1D, R12, R13, R14, C9, C10).
Read more: Semiconductor radioactivity detector
