International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering

Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, Volume 2, Issue 10, October 2012)

Modeling Of Nuclear Radiation Detection With Graphene Field Effect Transistor

M. A.Waseem1, Dr. J.V. Ramana Rao2, D. Srinivas3.
Centre for Nano Science and Technology, IST, Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad-500085, INDIA. 2 Professor Emeritus, Centre for Nano Science and Technology, IST, Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University Hyderabad-500085, INDIA.
Abstract Modern sensors continue to make significant impact in everyday life. There has been a strong demand for producing highly selective, sensitive, responsive, and cost effective sensors. Intensive research activities across the world are in progress for developing new sensing materials and technologies with the advent of nanotechnology. The risk of nuclear terrorism carried out by terrorist groups should be considered not only in construction and/or use of nuclear devices, but also in possible radioactive contamination of large urban areas. The radiological material could be spread by radiological dispersal devices, RDD, i.e. dirty bombs, through passive (aerosol) or active (explosive) means. In this paper, we describe an effort underway to simulate a comprehensive capability of Graphene Field Effect Transistor for Special Nuclear Material Detection. The main focus is on hierarchy, the modeling of Interaction of Radiation with Absorber Material of Semiconductors using GEANT4 For the dominant mode of first interaction (Compton scattering), transport of energetic Compton electrons in the absorber was subsequently modeled using CASINO Monte Carlo code for different absorber and buffer materials of Field Effect Transistor. GFET geometry is modeled using COMSOL Multiphysics to calculate the change in electric field, which results in the modulation of conductivity of Graphene which uses calculated ionize charge distribution as input is presented as result. Keywords Comsol, Casino, Dirac Point, Graphene, Ionizing radiation.
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I. INTRODUCTION Directional Detection of Special Nuclear Material cuts down the time required for detection. Operating conditions of most detectors requires cryogenic temperatures, cooling apparatus for detector crystal and higher potential. The paper presents operation schemes and the preliminary results of the modeling work done to simulation to propose a novel type of Graphene Field Effect (GFET) as nanoscale-based radiation detection devices which can operate at lower voltage ranges required for current radiation detection devices and eliminate the need for cryogenic temperature conditions. 530

Sharp change of resistivity in graphene due to change of electrical field caused by ionizing radiation is used as basis for detection scheme. It is aimed to provide better resolution at room temperature to register amount of radiation and energy spectrum. Graphene exhibits Low noise, high mobility (ballistic transport), higher speed [THz], high sensitivity. This has led to intensive research activities across the world in developing new sensing materials and technologies with the advent of nanotechnology, for example detection of dirty bomb or special nuclear material at main entry points of any country. High resolution at room temperature with high signal to noise ratios with background rejection is needed and which poses a major challenge in the development of radiation sensors, particularly those for -rays. The exceptional electronic properties of graphene are explored [1] in order to improve the potential application and performance for radiation detection. Here we present the operating principles of detector and the results of our modeling work for radiation sensor based on graphene. The device architecture is Graphene Field Effect Transistor (GFET) which has undoped electrically gated semiconductor substrate as radiation absorber with a thin dielectric buffer on top which separates the graphene and absorber [2]. The strategy here is to utilize sharp change in resistance of graphene when approaching the charge neutrality point on local electric field In this study focus is on hierarchy, using Monte Carlo simulations in conjunction with a model of Interaction of radiation with semiconductors absorber material is done using GEANT4 [14].Further studies include a focus on detection of -radiation. For the dominant mode of first interaction (Compton scattering), transport of energetic Compton electrons in the absorber has been subsequently modeled using CASINO Monte Carlo code for different absorber and buffer materials of Field Effect Transistor [13].

International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering

Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, Volume 2, Issue 10, October 2012) GFET geometry is modeled using COMSOL Multiphysics to calculate the change in electric field, which results in the modulation of conductivity of Graphene which uses calculated ionize charge distribution as input is presented as result. II. GRAPHENE FIELD EFFECT TRANSISTOR Graphene is a flat monolayer of carbon atoms packed tightly in 2D honey comb lattice which exhibits unique electronic properties [1]. It exhibits ambipolar field effect allowing tuning charge carriers continuously between electrons and holes. At room temperature grapheme exhibits about 10 times the mobility of Si or even better [2].Graphene exhibits exceptional electronic properties such as ultra-low electronic noise and at charge neutrality point or Dirac Point (Fig.1.)[6]. shows its resistance as a function of electric field strength and it is very sensitive to local charge of carrier density. The adsorption or desorption of single layer of molecule on graphene, which causes sensitivity in resistance is being exploited [7]. Four electrodes out of which current through graphene is supplied by two electrodes and other two electrodes measure the voltage drop across the graphene measuring resistance in turn. The resistance is affected by local electric field at graphene and near the Dirac point; resistance will be most sensitive to local electric field.

Fig.2. A GFET consists of an absorber with an insulating buffer layer which serves as a gate dielectric.VG is the gate voltage applied to the sample. Current is supplies across the graphene sample, and the voltage is measured to obtain the resistance of the graphene layer.

The medium of interaction for the radiation is an undoped semiconductor detector absorber. Buffer layer accounts for few different purposes: primarily, for insulating the absorber and graphene. Secondly, electrons are prevented from draining out before they are cleared by the side electrodes, source and drain. Electric field induced by charges is sensed by graphene and proportionally resistance changes. The electrons that are collected at the buffer layer are cleared by Source and Drain by applying suitable gate voltage. III. DETECTING PRESENCE OF RADIATION WITHOUT DRIFTING OF CHARGES
Fig.1.Sharp peak (Dirac point ) in resistance as function of electric field.

Small changes in electric field are sensed by graphene, due to the sensitivity of resistance to charge carriers near Dirac point and this feature allows to sense ionizing radiation(that causes change in electric field).The idea has some analogy with the sharp feature of superconductivity transition in a transition edge sensor(TES)[2,6]. A. Device Architecture: The prototype device or GFET has three main components: the semiconductor as absorber, a buffer layer of dielectric oxide, and the graphene on top of it. An electric field is created by applying gate voltage to absorber and electrode present on graphene (Fig.2). 531

A. Principle of operation: Scheme employed for Graphene Field Effect Transistor radiation detection consists of resistivity change resulting from changes in the electric field caused by ionizing radiation changes. The gate voltage drops across both the absorber and the buffer layer, when using an undoped insulation (low conductivity) semiconductor as the absorber (Fig.3). Electric field increases when semiconductor absorber is a conductive as the gate voltage drops primarily across the buffer layer (Fig.4). The conductivity of absorber increases when an ionizing radiation interacts with the absorber, resulting in an increase electric field, on applying suitable gate voltage at the back gate of the absorber and underneath graphene (Fig.4).

International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering

Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, Volume 2, Issue 10, October 2012) The resistance of the graphene represents change in electric field. The radiation interacting with absorber could be used to represent the transient change in resistance. Total energy deposited into the absorber and location of the ionized charges can be related to the magnitude of resistance change [8]. B.Drifiting of Charges: In Fissile material detection application in nuclear security it is important to measure the energy of the radiation deposited in the absorber, while the above scheme employed can detect the presence of ionizing radiation. The absorber is not ionized uniformly in an event of single ionizing radiation and charge distribution morphology is highly random (Sec.IV, Fig 7(a), 7(b)).

Fig.4.The incoming radiation ionizes the intrinsic semiconductor to create a conducting absorber. The gate voltage (VG) is now effectively transferred through the absorber and drops across the insulator. This result in an increased electric which is detected by graphene via the field effect (Fig.3) and is signaled by a corresponding change in resistance.

Fig.3.when the undoped absorber acts as an insulator, the gate voltage (VG) drops across the both absorber and the insulator, resulting in a relatively small electric field.

The energy deposited in the substrate has the poor correlation with electric field change near graphene, which could compromise the ability to measure deposited energy through change of resistance. Drifting of charges to the surface of the absorber, each interaction position to the layer at a constant distance from graphene is effectively normalized. The top electrode (graphene) and back gate electrode (absorber) is applied with a drift electric field, a curved electric field line, which become denser as they get closer to the graphene, is created due to the configuration of involving a large back gate electrode and small graphene. Under the graphene, field lines funnel electrons created by the ionizing radiation in the absorber are directed directly which results in an electric field response independent of where these ionization occur spatially in the absorber and dependent on the amount of such ionized electrons.

Fig.5.A cross section of GFET showing electrons both before and after they are drifted. The path of electrons taken is determined from the electric field lines, which are signified by dotted lines.

The insulation buffer layer as mentioned above in the Graphene Field Effect Transistor prevents the electrons from flowing out the gate drain electrode. The maximum change in electric field experienced by the graphene is directly related to the number of electrons created. Before the electrons are being collected through the drain, such that drift velocity in the transverse direction can be made much smaller than that in the vertical direction , which allows the electrons to settle under the graphene IV. MONTE CARLO MODEL FOR RADIATION INTERACTION A. Detector Modeling: Geant4 Monte Carlo code is used for modeling Si-based GFET, with a 600Mev gamma ray source from the bottom of the absorber, emitting into 4 Solid angle.

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International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering

Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, Volume 2, Issue 10, October 2012) The Simulation calculated the energy deposited and position of interaction. We modeled the electron trajectories within the silicon using the monte Carlo Simulation of electroN trajectory in sOlids(CASINO) code[13].

Fig 7(b).A CASINO Simulation of a beam of 600Mev electrons being emitted normal to a GaAs wafer of 500m.The red tracks are the electrons which have been backscatered out of the absorber

Fig.6.A.model of Interaction of Radiation from Geant4,where an synthetic 60Co which interacts with the detector block and a scintillator is placed to track any radiation passitng through the block [14].

B.COMSOL Model for Electronic Response: To estimate the electric field distribution for a simplified model of proposed Graphene Field Effect Transistor Finite Element Method simulations were conducted. COMSOL Multiphysics 3.5a is the FEM platform utilized in the simulation in which Conductive media DC application mode for two dimensions is employed. Poissons equation is solved in the model: (1) Where V is the voltage, Qj is the current source is the conductivity Je is external current density For simplicity and taking into consideration of important physics ,the conductivity values of SiO2 and the idealized highly intrinsic silicon substrate were taken to be 110-14 S/m in the model. Since the Je and Qj parameters were zero in the simulations, on solving poissons equation was reduced to Laplace equation. The device model considered here consists of a squaredshaped highly insulation intrinsic silicon substrate, measuring 500m by 500m, with a rectangular SiO2 top layer, measuring 500m by 300nm.The Graphene region was modeled as a grounded portion of the top surface of the SiO2 while the back gate of GFET structure is located in the bottom of the Si substrate. The left and right border boundaries in the model were designated as insulating boundary conditions while continuity conditions were designated for interior boundaries.

Fig 7(a).A CASINO Simulation of a beam of 600Mev electrons being emitted normal to a GaAs wafer of 500m.The red tracks are the electrons which have been backscatered out of the absorber.

The use of HfO2 as the buffer provide more significant fraction of electrons to travel through the buffer material limiting the electron-electron interactions and hole-electron traps once they reach energies of about ~600KeV.Here,when buffer HfO2 is used number of back scattered electrons and Secondary electrons can be distinguished by different color (BSE RED, SE BLUE in these cases). The interactions volume can also be estimated using scaling shown on screen.

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International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering

Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, Volume 2, Issue 10, October 2012) A triangular mesh of approximately 2804 elements was generated for the simulations.

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Fig.8.A triangular mesh of 2804 for the geometry of the model using FEM platform of COMSOL

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Fig.10 .Calculated distribution of the euipotential lines (1) and electric field profile (2) 1nm into the top of SiO2 top surface for two examples of ionization regions:one that reaches the Si/SiO2 and one that starts form the back gate boundary. The model assumed that the back gate biased at 10V.The shape and profile of the ionization region (width=10m).

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Fig.9.Calculated distribution of equpotential line (1) and electric field profile (2)

In an ionizing event the simulation investigated the modulation of electric field due to the generation of charges in the intrinsic silicon substrate. Carrier concentration data generated by GEANT4 simulations were used to determine the conductivity of the ionized regions in the model. Surrounding media (undoped Si or Sio2) has low conductivities than those of the ionization regions. A back gate voltage of 10V is assumed in the model .For two different energy deposition profiles, fig 9 illustrates the effect of ionization regions on the distribution of the equipotential lines in the Si absorber. It can be analyzed FEM simulations that ,in principle, the modulation of electric field in such a way as to produce a substantial change in the resistance of nearby graphene layer in GFET, in case of an ionizing event.

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International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering

Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, Volume 2, Issue 10, October 2012) From the simulations, the electric field strength in the silicon dioxide immediately above the ionized absorber region was on the order of 106-107 V/m .We can conclude from the simulation that an electric field as strong as that is capable of modulation the number of carriers and produce measurable change of resistance. When back gates biased at large voltage (Fig 11), using COMSOL (FEM) platform simulations it is illustrated that a grounded graphene region can serve to funnel charge carriers in the ionized absorber towards the Si-SiO2 interface. 1) V. CONCLUSION We have developed device architecture for detection ionizing radiation by drifting the charges produced towards the graphene and detecting the change in resistance which is proportional to the energy deposited in the detector. REFERENCES
[1 ] A.K. Geim and K.S. Novoselov., The Rise of Graphene. Nature Materials, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 183-191, March 2007. [2 ] K.S. Novoselov, et al. Electric field effect in atomically thin carbon films. Science vol. 306, pp. 666669, 2004. [3 ] S. A. Pozzi, E. Padovani, and M. Marseguerra, MCNP-PoliMi: A Monte Carlo Code for Correlation Measurements, Nucl. Instrum. Methods A, vol. 513, no.3, pp. 550-558, Nov. 2003. [4 ] P. Hovington et al., Scanning, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 1-14, Jan, 1997 [5 ] COMSOL Multiphysics, http://www.comsol.com. [6 ] F. Schedin et al., Detection of individual gas molecules adsorbed on graphene, Nature Materials, vol. 6, no. 9, pp. 652-655, Sep.2007. [7 ] S. Friedrich, "Nuclear Diagnostics with Cryogenic Spectrometers," in 11th Symposium on Radiation Measurements and Applications, Ann Arbor, MI, 2006, pp. 157-160. [8 ] N. Tsoulfanidis, Measurement and Detection of Radiation, 1986, pp. 249. [9 ] K. I. Bolotin et al., Ultrahigh electron mobility in suspended graphene, Solid State Communications Vol. 146, pp. 351-355, Mar. 2008. [10 ] Z. He, G.F. Knoll, D.K. Wehe, and J. Miyamoto, Position -sensitive single carrier CdZnTe detectors, Nucl. Instrum. Methods A vol. 388, no. 102, pp. 180-185, Mar. 1997 [11 ] Y-M. Lin and P. Avouris, Strong Suppression of Electrical Noise in Bilayer Graphene Nanodevices, Nano Lett., Vol. 8, pp 21192125, 2009 [12 ] Y-M. Lin et al., Dual-Gate Graphene FETs With fT of 50 GHz, IEEE EDL, vol. 31, pp 68-70, Jan. 2010. [13 ] http://www.gel.usherbrooke.ca/casino [14 ] http://geant4.cern.ch/

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Fig.11:1) COMSOL Simulation of the field lines created with the gate voltage of VG =-100V, applied from the electrode on the bottom of the absorber to the graphene (taken to be 2m wide in this simulation).The field lines, shown as red arrows, reveal the path of the drifted electrons, which converge under the graphene, independent of initial position. 2) The line plot shows the electric field strength 5nm below the SiO2 near the graphene region.

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