Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPMs) are a preferred methods for reading out scintillator-based radiation detectors in compact and easy to handle instruments. However, some brands of SiPMs indicated decreasing performance when subjected to ionizing radiation over time. For radiation detectors in space, however, TID tolerance is an essential property when choosing the components that shall be deployed on space missions.
SiPMs are essential components in the radiation detectors designed both for CENSSat-1 and future lunar missions, such as SER3NE.
For the contents of a Master Thesis, we propose the following questions and tasks:
- To determine the electrical properties of the SiPMs that are important for their performance and are subject to change under radiation
- Identify different SiPM components that shall be characterised
- Develop a test setup that can measure these parameters
- Develop a test plan to irradiate SiPMs and measure TID effects, performing the test at suitable test facilities, taking input from ESAs ESCC and ECSS standards and consulting with experts
- Build the test setup, test jigs and hardware needed to perform the testing
- Trial the test setup without radiation
- If a suitable test facility is available
- Perform the testing
- Analyse the results
- Compare different SiPM manufactures and suggest a component to use.
Suitable for long thesis (60 credits).