Advent Diamond wins NASA award to develop a new kind of particle detector for space science

If you have ever seen the aurora brighten the night sky with bands of colorful light, you have witnessed what can happen when fast-moving particles such as electrons and ions hit the Earth in just the right way.  These particles, which originate in the sun, can have other effects, like damaging satellites and space missions. Astrophysicists also like to study them in order to gain a better understanding of how our sun works. But measuring exactly what particles are coming out of the sun is a challenge; after all, as you may have noticed, the sun is bright. Like trying to see a dim light on a bright day, many traditional methods of measuring these particles are overwhelmed by light from the sun.   To solve this problem, Advent Diamond has won a Phase I SBIR grant from NASA to help bring about the next generation of particle measurement instruments.   

Advent Diamond’s approach is to use diamond as the particle detector material. Diamond has long been used as a radiation detector for particle physics experiments, and compared to other semiconductors, offers superior radiation hardness, signal to noise ratios, solar blindness, and fast response times. However, its potential for use in space-based instrumentation has not been fully realized due to the lack of commercial maturity of diamond as a semiconductor. As an example of a technical hurdle, the well controlled doping of semiconductor grade diamond required to fabricate diode-type detector structures was not possible until recently.

  In this project, Advent Diamond will demonstrate the feasibility of fabricating a double-sided detector, where each side of the detector uses semiconducting diamond to independently measure properties of the particles. This will eventually help scientists measure the mass and energy of particles streaming out of the sun- and how our space-based activities may be affected by them. This represents a new type of space particle detector, which could have a large impact on future scientific missions.

Advent Diamond leads the project, supported by subcontractors Arizona State University, Ozark Integrated Circuits and Orion Space Solutions.

Image credit: NASA.gov