Properties comparison between nanosecond X-ray detectors of polycrystalline and single-crystal diamond

Two X-ray detectors of similar sensitive volumes based on polycrystalline CVD diamond (pCVD) and single-crystal diamond (SCD) material respectively were tested and compared under fast pulsed X-rays, no significant difference was found in temporal response to fast pulsed X-rays. Considering high cost, small size and rareness of single crystal diamond, we propose to use polycrystalline diamond detectors in the detection of fast pulsed X-rays, that can find wider applications in comparison with single crystal diamond ones. Although natural and artificial diamond materials can be used in X-ray detection, single-crystal diamond (SCD) is rare and costly yet polycrystalline diamond (pCVD) is cheap and can be fabricated with large sizes. Presently it is difficult to predict which one may find wider applications in fast pulsed X-ray detection. In this paper, two nano-second diamond detectors with similar size based on CVD diamond material were fabricated, then the temporal response to ultra-fast pulsed X-ray were tested and compared. It can be concluded that both single-crystal and polycrystalline diamond devices perform well in fast pulsed X-ray detection with no significant difference. As a result, polycrystalline diamond devices have larger applications in fast pulsed X-ray detection than the single crystal ones for their large area, low cost and good properties in radiation detection. [Display omitted] •Two nano-second diamond detectors with similar size are fabricated, tested and compared.•Both single-crystal diamond and polycrystalline diamond detectors perform well in temporal response to fast pulsed X-rays.•The difference of single-crystal diamond and polycrystalline diamond detectors in temporal response is not significant.•Polycrystalline diamond devices have larger applications in fast pulsed x-ray detection than the single crystal diamond ones.