Radiation hardness and monitoring of the BaBar vertex tracker

The Silicon Vertex Tracker (SVT) is an essential component of the BaBar experiment at the PEP-II asymmetric B factory. The SVT has performed very well and several radiation studies have been carried out to determine that it will continue do so up to integrated radiation doses of 5 Mrad: The SVT radiation monitoringand protection system consists of silicon PIN-diodes, which are sufferingfrom radiation damage, reducingtheir precision. Diamond sensors are highly resistant to radiation damage and the possibility of replacing the PIN-diodes with diamonds is currently under investigation. Two polycrystalline diamonds have been installed near the BaBar interaction region and show promisingresults when compared to the PIN-diodes.