S. K. Kataria

Role of guard rings in improving the performance of silicon detectors

BARC has developed large-area silicon detectors in collaboration with BEL to be used in the pre-shower detector of the CMS experiment at CERN. The use of floating guard rings (FGR) in improving breakdown voltage and reducing leakage current of silicon detectors is well-known. In the present work, it has been demonstrated that FGRs can also be used to improve the spectroscopic response of silicon detectors. The results have been confirmed by carrying outα-particle (≈5 MeV) andγ-ray (60 keV) spectroscopies with the FGR floating or biased and the underlying physics aspect behind the change in spectra is explained. Although reduction in leakage current after biasing one of the guard rings has been reported earlier, the role of a guard ring in improving the spectroscopic response is reported for the first time. Results of TCAD simulations for silicon detectors with the guard ring under different biasing conditions have been presented. Low yield in producing large-area silicon detectors makes them very costly. However, with one of the FGRs biased even a detector having large surface leakage current can be used to give the same response as a very good detector. This makes the use of large-area silicon detectors very economical as the yield would be very high (>90%).

Classical microscopic description of particle cluster collisions: application to heavy ion collisions

A classical microscopic description of the collision between two bound particle clusters, interacting via a suitable two body force is presented with a view to extend the analogy to nuclear collisions. It is shown that with a proper choice of the parameters of the two body force, the model calculations can bring out qualitatively all the essential features of low energy heavy ion collisions such as complete fusion, deep inelastic scattering and nucleon transfers. The model avoids some of the limitations of purely hydrodynamic descriptions connected with the shape parametrization, compressibility and viscosity effects, etc.

Distribution of fusion barriers

Heavy ion fusion cross sections and compound nucleus average spin values obtained from distribution of fusion barriers are discussed. Various shapes of distribution functions are studied using a truncated Gaussian distribution function (TGD). It is shown that fusion cross section and average spin values are less sensitive to different parametrization of TGD function, whereas the second derivative of the product of energy and fusion cross sections (w.r.t. energy), obtained from the corresponding TGD functions are significantly different depending on the shape of the barrier distribution function. It is also shown byχ2 analysis of fusion cross section data that some systems favour a narrow Gaussian distribution function whereas others, for which the vibrational and rotational collective states are less important, favour a flat barrier distribution. A physical interpretation of the dynamical process that gives rise to different barrier distribution is given in the framework of microscopic coupled channel calculations.

Search for superheavy elements in monazite from beach sands of South India

Monazite minerals obtained from beach sands of South India were examined for the presence of superheavy elements with photon-induced x-ray fluorescence method. The accumulated data of a number of runs each of several days duration do not show any convincing peaks above the background at the expected locations for superheavy elements which are above the present sensitivity of detection of about 10 ppm by weight for element 126. However, some intriguing features pertaining to structures in the x-ray spectra around 27 keV were observed, which are of interest for further investigations.

Instrumentation for PSD-based neutron diffractometers at Dhruva reactor

Linear position sensitive detectors (PSDs) are widely used to configure neutron diffractometers and other instruments. Necessary front-end electronics and a data acquisition system [1] is developed to cater to such instruments built around the Dhruva research reactor in BARC. These include three diffractometers with multiple PSDs and four with single PSD. The front-end electronics consists of high voltage units, preamplifiers [2],shaping amplifiers, ratio ADCs (RDC) [3]. The data acquisition system consists of an interface card and software. Commercially available hardware like temperature controller or stepper motor controller connected over GPIB or RS232 are also integrated in the data acquisition system. The data acquisition is automated so that it can continue unattended for control parameter like temperature, thus enabling optimum utilization of available beam time. The instrumentation is scalable and can be easily configured for various instrumental requirements. The front-end electronics and the data acquisition system are described here.

L-dependent heavy ion fusion potentials

The energyE and angular momentuml dependence of optical potential for fusion of16O+208Pb system, observed by Christleyet al [5], is expressed as a function of radial kinetic energy (ɛ) instead of explicitE andl dependence. It is shown that the effects of different channel couplings, which result in different effective potentials, can also be parametrized as a function ofɛ. A correlation is obtained between the energy dependent part of this effective potential and the maximum of the spin enhancement around the Coulomb barrier and both these quantities depend on the details of the channel couplings.

Scission configuration in quaternary fission

Trajectory calculations have been carried out to obtain information about scission configuration in quaternary fission on the basis of observed angular-correlation and energy correlations between two alpha particles in the spontaneous quaternary fission of252Cf. A number of plausible hypotheses for the scission configuration were tested against the experimental observations on the two alpha particles. The role of mutual repulsion between two alpha particles at scission in deciding the final energy angular correlations has been examined. It was found that only one hypothesis regarding scission configuration is consistent with the experimental data.

Modified WKB transmission for fusion

In the optical model (OM) approach for fusion, absorption of flux occuring beyond the barrier position is presented in detail at low energies. It has been shown that the OM transmission can be well approximated as a sum of the WKB transmission and a long range absorption (LRA) contribution. Owing to absence of LRA, the fusion predictions of coupled channel codes based on transmission approach like the CCFUS code, do not agree with the predictions of complete coupled reaction channel (CRC) calculations based on OM approach using the code FRESCO. The CCFUS code with a modified transmission which includes LRA contribution is shown to be consistent with the CRC results using FRESCO. The static deformation of the colliding nuclei strongly influences the fusion imaginary potential and therefore the deep sub-barrier fusion cross sections.

Effective potentials and threshold anomaly

The strongE andL dependence of the effective elastic channel potentials is shown to be an implicit radial kinetic energy (ε) dependence. It is also shown that this effective potential satisfies the dispersion relation inε variable at the strong absorption radius. Further, the experimental data for both elastic and fusion channels are consistent with thisL-dependence of the corresponding effective potentials. The effective transfer channel potentials derived using CRC code FRESCO are shown to exhibit strong energy dependence as a result of couplings. The energy dependence of effective transfer strength for16O+208Pb and16O+232Th systems is determined using the experimental transfer angular distributions.

A new approach for heavy ion fusion spin distribution

The method of optical model analysis of generalized elastic scattering angular distributions (GESA) has been applied to heavy ion scattering to derive fusion spin distributions. This method is used to reproduce the coupled channel fusion spin distributions. When applied to experimental data, particularly to the fissile systems like16O +232Th, the method gives large mean square spin values in agreement with “anomalous” values derived from experimental fission fragment anisotropies.