Space Radiation and its Effects on EEE Components

Displacement Damage
Mechanism and Effects
Christian Poivey
Gordon Hopkinson

EPFL Space Center 9th June 2009

Space Radiation and its Effects on EEE Components

Outline
• Introduction
• Mechanism
• NIEL concept
– Terms and units
• Effect of Defects
• Device Effects, examples
• System Level Effects
• Bibliography

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Space Radiation and its Effects on EEE Components

Introduction
• Semiconductor materials (Si, GaAs,..) are
usually crystalline
• Space environment consists of energetic
particles which can pass through shielding
• Leads to disruption in the lattice structure
and device damage
– Damage degrades electrical performances of
the device

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Space Radiation and its Effects on EEE Components

Displacement Damage
Vacancies and interstitials migrate, either recombine ( ~90%)
or migrate and form stable defects (Frenkel pair)

V V
Stable Defect

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Space Radiation and its Effects on EEE Components

Displacement Damage
• Energy of recoils (PKA spectrum) is
determined by the collision kinematics
• electrons produce low energy PKAs
• low energy protons (< 10 MeV in Si, higher in isolated
GaAs) : Coulomb (Rutherford) scattering dominates (point)
• low energy PKAs defects

E
• neutrons and higher energy protons - nuclear elastic
scattering and nuclear reactions (inelastic scattering) cascades
• flat PKA spectrum & multiple
E cascades
• above ~ 20 MeV in silicon, inelastic collisions
tend to dominate
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Space Radiation and its Effects on EEE Components

Cascades
•50 keV PKA is typical of
what can be produced by a
1MeV neutron or high energy
proton
•Threshold displacement
energy in Si: 21 eV

After Johnston,
EPFL Space Center 9th June 2009 NSREC short course 2000
Space Radiation and its Effects on EEE Components

Non Ionizing Energy Loss (NIEL)

• Final concentration of defects depends only on
NIEL (total energy that goes into displacements,
about 0.1% of total energy loss) and not on the
type an initial energy of the particle
– Number of displacements (I-V pairs) is proportional to
PKA energy
• Kinchin-Pease: N=T/2TD; T: PKA energy; TD: threshold energy to
create a Frenkel pair)
– In cascade regime the nature of the damage does not
change with particle energy- just get more cascades
• nature of damage independent of PKA energy

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Space Radiation and its Effects on EEE Components

Non Ionizing Energy Loss (NIEL)

• Assume underlying electrical effect
proportional to defect concentration (Shockley
Read Hall theory)
– Damage constant depends on device and parameter measured

damage = kdamage x displacement damage dose

dφ ( E )
∫ NIEL( E ) dE dE

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Space Radiation and its Effects on EEE Components

Terms and Units

• NIEL (displacement kerma = Kinetic Energy Released to
MAtter)
– keVcm2/g or MeVcm2/g
• displacement damage dose DDD

DDD=∫NIEL(E)dΦ(E)dE (keV/g or MeV/g)

dE
• Displacement damage equivalent fluence DDEF
(monoenergetic beam)

FE0=∫(NIEL(E) dΦ(E)dE
NIEL(E0) dE
– e.g. 10 MeV protons/cm2 or 1 MeV neutrons/cm2

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Space Radiation and its Effects on EEE Components

NIEL - Silicon
1000
Dale et al.
Protons Huhtinen and Arnio
Protons Akkerman et al.
100 Jun
Vasilescu & Lindstroem
Neutrons
ASTM E 722
NIEL, (keVcm2/g)

Summers et al.
10 Electrons
Akkerman et al.
Neutrons

Electrons
0.1

Si
0.01
0.1 1 10 100 1000
Particle Energy (MeV)

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Space Radiation and its Effects on EEE Components

NIEL - GaAs
1000
Summers et al.
Protons Akkerman et al.
100 Summers et al.
Akkerman et al.
Akkerman et al.
10 ASTM E 722
NIEL (keVcm /g)
2

Neutrons
1

0.1
Electrons
0.01
GaAs
0.001
0.1 1 10 100 1000
Energy (MeV)

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Space Radiation and its Effects on EEE Components

Effect of Defects
Conduction Band

EDONOR EC

Et

EV

Valence Band
Generation Recombination Trapping Compensation Tunneling

Leakage Minority Carrier Leakage Current

CTE in CCDs Carrier
Current Lifetime especially if narrow bangap
also Removal and high electric field
Carrier Removal

Also: scattering at defects reduces carrier mobility, but only at vey high fluences

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Space Radiation and its Effects on EEE Components

Device Effects – Lifetime Damage

• Minority carrier lifetime
1 1 φ
= +
τ τ0 K
– affects bipolar ICs (e.g. wide base regions in lateral & substrate
pnp transistors, >3 1010 50 MeV p/cm2)
– reduces detector responsivity (decrease in diffusion length, (Dτ)1/2)
– reduces efficiency of solar cells
– reduces light output of LEDs (non-radiative recombination)
– threshold current increase in laser diodes
– reduction of current transfer ratio (CTR) in optocouplers
• LED, phototransistor and coupling medium can be affected
– sensitive devices can degrade at 1010 - 1011 50 MeV protons/cm2

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Space Radiation and its Effects on EEE Components

Device Effects – Majority Carrier Removal

• approximate carrier removal rates
Particle Silicon GaAs

1 MeV 0.15/cm 0.6/cm

electrons
50 MeV 12/cm 30/cm
protons

• effect depends on doping (and whether n- or p- type)

• for doping of 1015/cm3, carrier removal starts to be important for 50
MeV proton fluences ~ 1012 p/cm2
• but lightly doped structures can degrade at lower fluence (e.g. i-
region of a p-i-n diode: due to leakage currents - 1010 p/cm2)
– but p-i-n diodes harder than conventional diodes since not sensitive to lifetime
effects - collection by drift rather than diffusion
• type inversion (n- to p-type) in detectors & increase in depletion
voltage
• carrier removal important for solar cells at high fluence

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Space Radiation and its Effects on EEE Components

Device Effect - Summary

Technology category sub-category Effects

General bipolar BJT hFE degradation in BJTs, particularly for low-current conditions (PNP devices more
sensitive to DD than NPN)

diodes Increased leakage current

increased forward voltage drop

Electro-optic sensors CCDs CTE degradation, Increased dark current, Increased hot spots, Increased bright columns
Random telegraph signals

APS Increased dark current, Increased hot spots, Random telegraph signals
Reduced responsivity

Photo diodes Reduced photocurrents

Increased dark currents

Photo transistors hFE degradation??

Reduced responsivity??
Increased dark currents??

Light-emitting diodes LEDs (general) Reduced light power output

Laser diodes Reduced light power output

Increased threshold current

Opto-couplers Reduced current transfer ratio

Solar cells Silicon Reduced short-circuit current

GaAs, InP etc Reduced open-circuit voltage
Reduced maximum power

Optical materials Alkali halides Reduced transmission

Silica

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Space Radiation and its Effects on EEE Components

Device Effects - Examples

Voltage
Regulator

Rax et al.
IEEE Trans.
Nucl. Sci. vol 46(6),
pp. 1660-1665, 1999

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Space Radiation and its Effects on EEE Components

Device Effects, Example

1.20
Mitel 3C91C (device is made no coupling medium)
5mA drive Vce=5V
1.00
#20 initial CTR=98
#29 initial CTR=81
0.80
#49 initial CTR=54
CTR0/CTR

0.60

0.40 Optocoupler

0.20

0.00
0.E+00 2.E+10 4.E+10 6.E+10 8.E+10 1.E+11

Fluence (32 MeV protons/cm2)

Reed et al. IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci. vol 48(6), pp. 2202-2209, 2001
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Space Radiation and its Effects on EEE Components

Device Effects - Examples

LED

Johnston
NSREC200
Short CourseNotes

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Space Radiation and its Effects on EEE Components

Device Effects - Examples

CCD
Dark Image:

dark spikes
&
CTI damage

1.8E10 10 MeV p/cm2

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Space Radiation and its Effects on EEE Components

Materials Effects
• Effects in materials (insulators, optical glasses,
biological samples) are usually considered to be
dominated by ionization processes
– only a small fraction of the particle energy goes into
displacements
– materials like insulators and glasses are disordered with no well
defined crystal structure (will contain many defects before
irradiation)
– However displacement damage effects cannot be ruled out,
particularly at the end of the particle track
• Displacement damage effects in photonic crystals
tend to occur only at very high fluences

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Space Radiation and its Effects on EEE Components

Photonic Crystal

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Space Radiation and its Effects on EEE Components

NIEL deviations: GaAs devices

Walters et al.,
IEEE Trans.
Nucl. Sci., vol.
48, pp 1773-
1777, 2001

But NIEL scaling is a good first approximation

removes most of the energy (and particle) dependence
without it, testing/prediction would be much more complicated

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Space Radiation and its Effects on EEE Components

System Level Effects

• Sensor degradation important for payloads
and star trackers
– but usually a gradual change in performance
• but difficult to calibrate (e.g. RTS and CTI effects in CCDs)
• CTI effects for Chandra CCDs
• Optocouplers have failed in space
applications
– Topex Poseidon, failures in optocouplers in thruster
monitoring circuits at 2 x 1010 p/cm2
– optocouplers used in many types of circuit (e.g. DC-
DC converters)
• Solar cell degradation or failure

EPFL Space Center 9th June 2009

Space Radiation and its Effects on EEE Components

Bibliography
• RADECS short course notes
– 2003 Gordon Hopkinson
Radiation Engineering Methods for Space
Applications, part 3B: Radiation Effects and Analysis,
Displacement Damage
• IEEE NSREC short course notes
– 1999 Cheryl Marshall
Proton Effects and Test Issues for Satellite Designers,
Part B: Displacement Effects
– 2000 Allan Johnston
Optoelectronic Devices with Complex Failure Modes

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