Performance of a thick 250 mi m silicon carbide detector: stability and energy resolution

Silicon carbide detectors represent an alternative to diamond detectors for fast neutrondetection in harsh environments, especially fusion plasmas. Previous studies on thin prototypes(either 10 mi m or 100 mi m thick) suggested that thicker active volumes might be better suited forspectroscopy measurements, due to the higher chance of retaining the neutron interaction productsinside the active volume. Therefore, in this work two 250 mi m SiC prototypes are tested with alphaparticles following the same process conducted in the past for thinner prototypes. A stable detectionis demonstrated, along an energy resolution that, if projected to DT neutrons, could become thelowest achieved so far with a SiC detector (1.3%). Some difficulties in reaching a full depletionare highlighted, as long as perspectives of a partial polarization operation of the detectors.