Laboratory nuclear-physics methods for determining the characteristics of charged particle silicon detectors

A review is presented of “nontraditional” laboratory nuclear-physical methods for determining key parameters of charged-particle semiconductor detectors, such as the sensitive depth and the energy resolution. The methods for measuring the sensitive depth are based on the peculiarities in interactions of radiation from standard α,β, and γ sources and monochromatic neutrons with the detector materials and require that several “reference” detectors with known characteristics be available. Using the proposed methods, it is possible to preliminarily estimate the serviceability of detectors before employing them in expensive experiments, e.g., on accelerator beams.