Will my silicon detector see this particle?

Enter the particle, its momentum and the sensor thickness. The page follows the energy through the silicon to the charge at the front end and compares it with your noise.

A muon at 3000 MeV/c in 300 µm of silicon most probably leaves 22,568 electron-hole pairs (3.62 fC). With 1000 e⁻ rms of noise, S/N is 22.6.

  1. Step 1. How much energy does it lose?

    Mean stopping power and the most probable loss for a thin layer.

    MeV/c
    µm

    The calculator needs JavaScript. The reference values below are computed by the same code.

  2. Step 2. What is the most probable deposit?

    The Landau most probable value and width for this thickness, not the mean.

    GeV/c

    Enable JavaScript to calculate. The reference table below uses the same engine.

  3. Step 3. How much charge does that make?

    Electron-hole pairs and charge in femtocoulombs, at the pair-creation energy of the material.

    µm

    Enable JavaScript to calculate. The reference table below uses the same engine.

  4. Step 4. How loud is the front end?

    Your ENC decides the answer; the leakage current gives the shot-noise floor below it.

    Ω
    K
    Hz
    A
    dB
    dBm
    bit
    dB

    Enable JavaScript to change the calculation.

Result

Signal-to-noise 22.6

Clearly: the most probable signal is 22.6 times the noise.

Cite this

ScienceShot. Will my silicon detector see this particle? https://scienceshot.com/silicon-detector-signal-to-noise.

More formats

ScienceShot. (2026). Will my silicon detector see this particle? [Online calculator]. https://scienceshot.com/silicon-detector-signal-to-noise

@misc{scienceshot-silicon-detector-signal-to-2026,
  author = {{ScienceShot},
  title  = {{Will my silicon detector see this particle?}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {Online calculator},
  url    = {https://scienceshot.com/silicon-detector-signal-to-noise}
}

Sources: PDG; NIST ESTAR; Bertolini & Coche (w); Johnson (1928); Nyquist (1928).

Reviewed by a physicist with CERN experience