Is weighting potential used at all in my simulation?

Simulation / Configuration Questions
1

Dear all,
I am simulating a planar hybrid pixel module hit by negative muons; the sensor is unirradiated.
Here is the main configuration file I am using:
planar.conf (1.3 KB)
The detectors_file contains a single rd53a_50.
As you can see I am using ElectricFieldReader, WeightingPotentialReader, GenericPropagation and PulseTransfer. From the log file I see the weighting potential file is read in, but I am not sure it is used given the combination of modules I am using. How can I ‘test’ its use or not, please?

I am pretty sure you can tell me right away what is happening - and I will be thankful for that! - but I wanted to be able to check these kind of things by myself if possible. Maybe increasing the log_level?

Many thanks in advance and best regards,
Marco Bomben

2

Hi Marco @mbomben ,

indeed, we know the answer right away and I have to admit that this might not be reflected too well in the documentation: the only modules making use of the weighting potential are so far the TransientPropagation and the InducedTransfer modules. Hence, in your configuration the weighting potential is indeed not applied. There is no mechanism yet that determines whether a read in field was actually used anywhere, so the only way to tell at the moment is really the combination of modules you are using.

For your information: the GenericPropagation only uses the electric field and the doping concentration, if available. It does calculate “pulses”, but those are quite simplified and simply add charge as soon as a group of charge carriers is collected at the electrode. Also here, we will revisit the documentation to see whether this is reflected well.

The bottom line probably is: if you’d like your weighting potential to have an impact, you should use the combination of TransientPropagation and PulseTransfer.

Cheers
Paul

3

Thanks a lot @pschutze for the explanation!
Coming back to physics: since I am simulating unirradiated sensors I think it is not a big deal if weighting potential information is not used, what do you think?
I will maybe give it a go to TransientPropagation and PulseTransfer combination to see if there is any difference.

Thanks and cheers,
Marco

4

Anytime! I just realised that you’re using a linear electric field. We assume that in such a case the weighting potential won’t have much of a benefit. In fact, we actually throw an error when using TransientPropagation for linear fields (“This module will likely produce unphysical results when applying linear electric fields.”). Hence, I as well believe that you don’t need a weighting potential for this simulation.

Cheers
Paul

1 Like
5

Then I will not run my test :slight_smile: Thanks for saving me time!

Cheers,
Marco