Fast Simulation of a Silicon-Pad Detector

Abstract: Several types of detectors are used to detect charged particles in particle and nuclear physics experiments. Since the semiconductor detector has superior spatial and kinematic resolutions as well as good response time than other types of detectors, it has become one of the most important detectors recently. When charged particles pass through the semiconductor detector, electron-hole pairs are formed inside the detector and move toward the electrode by the electric field inside the detector. At this time, the trajectory and momentum can be determined through the generated current signal. In this study, we introduce an open-source application named Fast Silicon Device Simulation that is developed for fast simulation of a typical silicon semiconductor detector, such as a p-type pad on an n-type wafer with a reverse-bias voltage. Iterative and multi-grid methods are used to calculate the potential and electric field in the simulation fast. Current signals produced by the simulation are compared with results by Silvaco TCAD and Garfield++ simulations. The simulation program is based on the ROOT that has been developed by CERN.