Average energy expended per ionized electron-hole pair for α particles in Si(Li)

New results have been obtained for the temperature dependence of ε, the average energy required to create an electron-hole pair by ionizing radiation, for α particles incident on lithium-drifted silicon surface barrier detectors. For temperatures between 31 and 291°K, the application of fields up to 10
₄
v/cm resulted in a saturated pulse height, which eliminated the necessity for extrapolation procedures to determine ε. Between 4.2 and 31°K pulse height saturation was not observed. Below 31°K the presence of both fast and slow risetime components in the detector pulse prevented an accurate determination of the pulse height. A significant difference between the present results and those previously reported is that ε plotted vs the energy gap gives a linear curve over the entire range reported (31-291°K).