CMOS Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASIC) coupled with silicon radiation detectors provide the best performance in terms of noise, power consumption and compactness in a wide range of applications. Some of them include: biomedical spectroscopy or tomography, Earth-based or space telescope for monitoring x or gamma ray events coming from deep space, physic experiments, security scanning, and cultural heritage monitoring.
The system detects the photons that are converted in a voltage/current signal processable by dedicated mixed-signal electronics implementing different on-chip functionalities, such as photon counting, energy spectrum, energy-based discrimination and imaging. In this field, today’s main challenges are the achievement of low electronic noise and power consumption, combined with high photon rates working operations.
The goal of this project is to develop a CMOS ASIC specifically designed for silicon radiation detector as, for example, Silicon Drift Detector (SDD), Low Gain Avalanche Diode (LGAD) and Silicon Photon Multiplier (SiPM), focusing on low-noise, high-rate and low power consumption trade-off.
The student will interact with experts in the fields of radiation sensors and analog/mixed signal integrated circuit design, gaining a unique combination of background knowledge. The expected outcome is the realization of state-of-the-art ASIC for radiation detectors and their validation in a real use-case scenario.