CVD diamond sensors for charged particle detection

CVD diamond material was used to build position-sensitive detectors for single-charged particles to be employed in high-intensity physics experiments. To obtain position information, metal contacts shaped as strips or pixels are applied to the detector surface for one- or two-dimensional coordinate measurement. Strip detectors 2 x 4 cm(2) in size with a strip distance of 50 mum were tested. Pixel detectors of various pixel sizes were bump bonded to electronics chips and investigated. A key issue for the use of these sensors in high intensity experiments is the radiation hardness. Several irradiation experiments were carried out with pions, protons and neutrons exceeding a fluence of 10(15) particles/cm(2). The paper presents an overview of the results obtained with strip and pixel detectors in high-energy test beams and summarises the irradiation studies.