Abstract
A Radiation Belt Monitor (RBM) sensitive to protons and electrons with energy ≳0.5 MeV1 has been designed for the High Energy Transient Experiment (HETE) satellite in order to: first, control the on-off configuration of the experiments (i.e. those susceptible to proton damage); and second, to indicate the presence of proton and/or electron events that could masquerade as legitimate high energy photon events. One of the two RBM channels has an enhanced sensitivity to electrons. Each channel of the RBM, based on a PIN silicon diode, requires a typical power of 6 milliwatts. Tests have been performed with protons with energies from ∼0.1 to 2.5 MeV (generated by a Cockcroft-Walton linear accelerator via the d(d,p)t reaction), and with electrons with energies up to 1 MeV (from a 1.0 µCi207Bi source).
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A ctually, due to the finite thickness of the detector, there are also upper energy limits for the detection of protons and electrons. The limit for protons is ∼50 MeV. The stopping power of protons with energy ≳50 MeV is small enough that they deposit less than the 0.5 MeV threshold energy in the active layer of the detector. This issue is important because the energy spectra of protons and electrons found in low earth orbits extend to energies of order 10 to 100 MeV.3
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In fact, compared to the proton channel, the electron channel with its higher reverse bias voltage can detect protons and electrons with higher energies. This is because the electron channel PIN diode has a thicker depletion layer and, thus, a higher upper energy limit.
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Lo, D.H., Wenzel, K.W., Petrasso, R.D. et al. A radiation belt monitor for the high energy transient experiment satellite. Exp Astron 4, 59–75 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01581814
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01581814