DETECTORS OF SHORT-RANGE PARTICLES BASED ON NEUTRON-TRANSMUTATION-DOPED SILICON.

The suitability of neutron-transmutation silicon (NTS) produced without preselection of the starting p-type silicon for precision alpha spectrometry is studied. Use as a starting material of p-type silicon with resistivity rho //p equals 2-80 k OMEGA multiplied by (times) cm provides NTS with rho //n congruent 1-25 k OMEGA multiplied by (times) cm; specimens with rho //n less than equivalent to 5 k OMEGA multiplied by (times) cm have sufficiently high homogeneity, which ensures an energy resolution of 12-14 kev. The nature of charge transfer in NTS with rho //n congruent 10-25 k OMEGA multiplied by (times) cm indicates the existence of local regions of increased compensation (Approximately 1 M OMEGA multiplied by (times) cm). To ensure high energy resolution, the detector must operate in the total-depletion mode. It is shown that the value of rho //n, which is determined by the four-probe method, does not allow prediction of the thickness of the sensitive region of detectors made of high-resistivity NTS, since the presence of deep centers in the material is not taken into account.