The effect of metal field plates on multiguard structures with floating P+ guard rings

The performance and stability of silicon diode detectors can be improved by implementing guard ring structures around the active detector area. The purpose of this work is to study design parameters influencing the performance of multiguard structures, especially the effect of metal field plates. An important feature is the potential distribution in the multiguard ring structure which depends on the bulk doping concentration, the oxide charge, the size of the gap between guard rings and the field-plate design. We have made a systematic investigation of the effect of distance between floating p(+) guard rings with two different metal field plate designs. We have also varied the width of the field plates and studied the effect of gamma irradiation. Numerical simulations have been done to compare with results from the experimental potential distributions between guard rings.