Response of photodiodes in the vacuum ultraviolet

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Abstract
We have measured the responses of four commercial photodiodes in the vacuum ultraviolet from 20 to 600 eV and have also measured the inelastic-electron-scattering spectra of the materials contained in the diodes from 0 to 260 eV. Three of the diodes are silicon: an enhanced channel device, an x-ray-stabilized silicon diode, and a p-i-n diode. The fourth is a gallium arsenide phosphide Schottky diode. The diode response has been modeled by considering absorption through the surface layer and inelastic surface recombination. The model produces an excellent description of the measured responses. From our analysis we have obtained reasonable values for the number of electrons produced per eV of incident radiation, the thicknesses of the surface layers, the surface recombination velocities, and the average diffusion lengths of the minority carriers. The highest efficiency is obtained for a silicon x-ray-stabilized diode followed by the gallium arsenide phosphide diode. We find that both of these diodes make excellent, stable soft-x-ray detectors.