Murphy, John W.Mejia, IsraelQuevedo-López, Manuel A.Gnade, Bruce E.2012-10-302012-10-302012-10-012012-10-040003-6951http://hdl.handle.net/10735.1/2337In this work, we investigate the optimal thickness of a semiconductor diode for thin-film solid state thermal neutron detectors. We evaluate several diode materials, Si, CdTe, GaAs, C (diamond), and ZnO, and two neutron converter materials, 10B and 6LiF. Investigating a coplanar diode/converter geometry, we determine the minimum semiconductor thickness needed to achieve maximum neutron detection efficiency. By keeping the semiconductor thickness to a minimum, gamma rejection is kept as high as possible. In this way, we optimize detector performance for different thin-film semiconductor materials.en-US© 2012 American Institute of Physics.Thin filmsDiodes, SemiconductorSolid state thermal neutron detectorsTextThe following article appeared in Murphy, John W., George R. Kunnen, Israel Mejia, Manuel A. Quevedo-Lopez, David Allee, and Bruce Gnade. "Optimizing diode thickness for thin-film solid state thermal neutron detectors." Applied Physics Letters 101, 143506 (2012); doi: 10.1063/1.4757292