Response of Silicon Fission Detectors to Channeled 127I and 40Ar Ions

When very heavy ions were directed along the crystalline channels of Si fission detectors, a three-fold improvement in energy resolution was obtained for particles remaining in the channels. For such channeled particles the usual pulse height defect was reduced by more than a factor of 10. The results seem to fit certain theoretical explanations of detector nonlinearities found in the literature, in which the nonlinearities are ascribed to the predominance of atomic collision processes near the end of the range.