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Detector signal calculator

A relativistic muon crossing 300 µm of silicon produces about 22,600 electron-hole pairs at the most probable signal, or 3.62 fC. Calculate the most probable and mean signal for your sensor. The reference case uses a 3 GeV/c muon; the analytic Landau estimate varies with momentum and thickness.

Detector signal calculator

Electron-hole pairs and fully collected charge in silicon and germanium.

µm

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

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MIP signal by sensor thickness

Silicon, 3 GeV/c muon, normal incidence. Values computed with the PDG Bethe and Landau formulas; MPV is not linear in thickness.

Thickness (µm)Electron-hole pairs (MPV / Mean)Collected charge (fC, MPV / Mean)Energy deposit (keV, MPV / Mean)Landau FWHM (keV)
503321 / 63530.5321 / 1.01812.02 / 233.588
1006984 / 127101.119 / 2.03625.28 / 467.175
15010780 / 190601.727 / 3.05439.01 / 68.9910.76
20014650 / 254102.348 / 4.07153.04 / 91.9914.35
30022580 / 381203.617 / 6.10781.73 / 13821.53
50038890 / 635306.231 / 10.18140.8 / 23035.88

Full charge collection, no gain or trapping; Q = Ne (one electron charge per pair). Thickness is the traversed path. Landau FWHM describes energy-loss straggling, not electronic resolution. Thin-absorber, heavy-particle model; no shell or Barkas corrections.

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ScienceShot. Detector signal calculator. https://scienceshot.com/detector-signal-calculator.

Sources: PDG, Passage of Particles Through Matter; PDG, Particle Detectors (§35.8); NIST ESTAR; Bertolini & Coche, Semiconductor Detectors (1968), Si/Ge pair energies.

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Cite this page

ScienceShot. (2026). Detector signal calculator [Online calculator]. https://scienceshot.com/detector-signal-calculator

@misc{scienceshot-detector-signal-calculator-2026,
  author = {{ScienceShot}},
  title  = {{Detector signal calculator}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {Online calculator},
  url    = {https://scienceshot.com/detector-signal-calculator}
}