Detection of alpha particle contamination on ultra low activity-grade integrated circuits

Abstract

We propose to apply the superheated droplet detector (SDD) technology to the measurement of alpha-particle emissivity on integrated circuits of ultra-low activity grade (< 1α/khcm2) for high reliability applications. This work is based on the SDDs employed within our team to the direct search for dark matter. We describe the modifications in the dark matter SDDs with respect to fabrication, signal analysis and characterization, in order to obtain a device with the adequate detection sensitivity and background noise.