Lazarus effect

These defects, in the form of both lattice vacancies and atoms at interstitial sites, have the effect of temporarily trapping the electrons and holes which are created when ionizing particles pass through the detector.

However in 1997, Vittorio Giulio Palmieri, Kurt Borer, Stefan Janos, Cinzia Da Viá and Luca Casagrande at the University of Bern (Switzerland) found out that at temperatures below 130 kelvins (about −143 degrees Celsius), dead detectors apparently come back to life.

At room temperature radiation damage induced defects temporarily trap electrons and holes resulting from ionization, which are then emitted back to the conduction band or valence band in a time that is typically longer than the read-out time of the connected electronics.

[2][3][4] Thanks to the Lazarus effect, silicon detectors have been proven to be able survive radiation doses in excess of 90 GRad[5][6] and they have been proposed for future high luminosity experiments.

[9][10][11] Recently, the Lazarus effect has been proposed as the mechanism providing enhanced radiation hardness for high energy silicon alpha and beta voltaic devices operated at cryogenic temperatures.