Pulse Shape Discrimination Between Alpha and Beta Particles in Silicon Radiation Detectors

Solar neutrinos above 2 MeV are generated primarily in the decay of ⁸B to ⁸Be, and an accurate spectral shape of this decay is an important input to experiments measuring the solar neutrino spectrum. By measuring the energy spectrum of 8B beta decay in the lab using silicon detectors, we can better understand the neutrino energy spectrum from this decay. However, a challenge arises when trying to distinguish between the signals produced from minimum-ionizing beta particles and alpha particles of around 1 MeV hitting the detectors. In this work, we attempt to distinguish between betas and alphas by applying pulse shape discrimination techniques developed in neutrinoless double-beta decay experiments with HPGe detectors to the signals produced by Silicon PIPS detectors.