User guide
The purpose of the library is twofold. On one side it is meant to be used for solution of Poisson/Laplace equation for any geometry in 2D or 3D and on the other to simulate charge transport in such a detector structure. Although there are several commercial packages available on the market they are not suited for fast simulation of semiconductor detectors, as they are far more orineted to simulation of electronics.
The main input to the solver is space charge distribution, which is used to calculate the electric field. Unlike the commercial packages KDetSim is therefore not intended to be used for calculatation of electric field from the from the defects' parameters nor explain the leakage current and trapping behaviour. These are all inputs to the KDetSim and should be derived from the measurements. As is focuses to the simulation of charge collection it is well suited for multi-electrode problems through the concept of so called weigthing field (a.k.a Ramo field).
The difference between the powerfull comercial software like Synopsis-TCAD and the KDetSim is mainly in the following:
- it is fast and allows iterative approaches - minimization of multi-parameter problems
- allows Monte-Carlo simulatation of the transport of the generated charge instead looking at free carrier concentration relaxation
- allows expanding of simulated structures over larger volume and by that e.g. effects related to multi-electrode readout like charge sharing
- it is easly incorporated in any C++/ROOT/GEANT4 based physics generator
- it is free and open source
The manual is split into several sections:
- Formation of the signal in the simulation - physics background
- How to start and how it works? - concept explaned on an example
- How to do what you want to do? - possible applications