Publications

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Ionizing radiation is known to cause Single Event Effects (SEE) in a variety of electronic devices. The mechanism that leads to these SEEs is current induced by the radiation in these devices. While this phenomenon is detrimental in ICs, this is the basic mechanism behind the operation of semiconductor radiation detectors. To be able to predict SEEs in ICs and detector responses we need to be able to simulate the radiation induced current as the function of time. There are analytical models, which work for very simple detector configurations, but fail for anything more complex. On the other end, TCAD programs can simulate this process in microelectronic devices, but these TCAD codes costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and they require huge computing resources. In addition, in certain cases they fail to predict the correct behavior. A simulation model based on the Gunn theorem was developed and used with the COMSOL Multiphysics framework.

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Radiation Effects Microscopy is an extremely useful technique in failure analysis of electronic parts used in radiation environment. It also provides much needed support for development of radiation hard components used in spacecraft and nuclear weapons. As the IC manufacturing technology progresses, more and more overlayers are used; therefore, the sensitive region of the part is getting farther and farther from the surface. The thickness of these overlayers is so large today that the traditional microbeams, which are used for REM are unable to reach the sensitive regions. As a result, higher ion beam energies have to be used (> GeV), which are available only at cyclotrons. Since it is extremely complicated to focus these GeV ion beams, a new method has to be developed to perform REM at cyclotrons. We developed a new technique, Ion Photon Emission Microscopy, where instead of focusing the ion beam we use secondary photons emitted from a fluorescence layer on top of the devices being tested to determine the position of the ion hit. By recording this position information in coincidence with an SEE signal we will be able to indentify radiation sensitive regions of modern electronic parts, which will increase the efficiency of radiation hard circuits.

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Electronic components such as bipolar junction transistors (BJTs) are damaged when they are exposed to radiation and, as a result, their performance can significantly degrade. In certain environments the radiation consists of short, high flux pulses of neutrons. Electronics components have traditionally been tested against short neutron pulses in pulsed nuclear reactors. These reactors are becoming less and less available; many of them were shut down permanently in the past few years. Therefore, new methods using radiation sources other than pulsed nuclear reactors needed to be developed. Neutrons affect semiconductors such as Si by causing atomic displacements of Si atoms. The recoiled Si atom creates a collision cascade which leads to displacements in Si. Since heavy ions create similar cascades in Si we can use them to create similar damage to what neutrons create. This LDRD successfully developed a new technique using easily available particle accelerators to provide an alternative to pulsed nuclear reactors to study the displacement damage and subsequent transient annealing that occurs in various transistor devices and potentially qualify them against radiation effects caused by pulsed neutrons.

Combining broad-beam circuit level single-event upset (SEU) response with heavy ion microprobe charge collection measurements on single silicon-germanium heterojunction bipolar transistors improves understanding of the charge collection mechanisms responsible for SEU response of digital SiGe HBT technology. This new understanding of the SEU mechanisms shows that the right rectangular parallele-piped model for the sensitive volume is not applicable to this technology. A new first-order physical model is proposed and calibrated with moderate success.

This paper analyzes the collected charge in heavy ion irradiated MOS structures. The charge generated in the substrate induces a displacement effect which strongly depends on the capacitor structure. Networks of capacitors are particularly sensitive to charge sharing effects. This has important implications for the reliability of SOI and DRAMs which use isolation oxides as a key elementary structure. The buried oxide of present day and future SOI technologies is thick enough to avoid a significant collection from displacement effects. On the other hand, the retention capacitors of trench DRAMs are particularly sensitive to charge release in the substrate. Charge collection on retention capacitors participate to the MBU sensitivity of DRAM.

This paper presents the first 3-D simulation of heavy-ion induced charge collection in a SiGe HBT, together with microbeam testing data. The charge collected by the terminals is a strong function of the ion striking position. The sensitive area of charge collection for each terminal is identified based on analysis of the device structure and simulation results. For a normal strike between the deep trench edges, most of the electrons and holes are collected by the collector and substrate terminals, respectively. For an ion strike between the shallow trench edges surrounding the emitter, the base collects appreciable amount of charge. Emitter collects negligible amount of charge. Good agreement is achieved between the experimental and simulated data. Problems encountered with mesh generation and charge collection simulation are also discussed.

The effects of photocurrents in nuclear weapons induced by proximal nuclear detonations are well known and remain a serious hostile environment threat for the US stockpile. This report describes the final results of an LDRD study of the physical phenomena underlying prompt photocurrents in microelectronic devices and circuits. The goals of this project were to obtain an improved understanding of these phenomena, and to incorporate improved models of photocurrent effects into simulation codes to assist designers in meeting hostile radiation requirements with minimum build and test cycles. We have also developed a new capability on the ion microbeam accelerator in Sandia's Ion Beam Materials Research Laboratory (the Transient Radiation Microscope, or TRM) to supply ionizing radiation in selected micro-regions of a device. The dose rates achieved in this new facility approach those possible with conventional large-scale dose-rate sources at Sandia such as HERMES III and Saturn. It is now possible to test the physics and models in device physics simulators such as Davinci in ways not previously possible. We found that the physical models in Davinci are well suited to calculating prompt photocurrents in microelectronic devices, and that the TRM can reproduce results from conventional large-scale dose-rate sources in devices where the charge-collection depth is less than the range of the ions used in the TRM.

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The electronic transport properties of Cadmium Zinc Telluride (CZT) determine the charge collection efficiency (i.e. the signal quality) of CZT detectors. These properties vary on both macroscopic and microscopic scale and depend on the presence of impurities and defects introduced during the crystal growth. Ion Beam Induced Charge Collection (IBICC) is a proven method to measure the charge collection efficiency. Using an ion microbeam, the charge collection efficiency can be mapped with submicron resolution, and the map of electronic properties (such as drift length) can be calculated from the measurement. A more sophisticated version of IBICC, the Time Resolved IBICC (TRIBICC) allows them to determine the mobility and the life time of the charge carriers by recording and analyzing the transient waveform of the detector signal. Furthermore, lateral IBICC and TRIBICC can provide information how the charge collection efficiency depends on the depth where the charge carriers are generated. This allows one to deduce information on the distribution of the electric field and transport properties of the charge carriers along the detector axis. IBICC and TRIBICC were used at the Sandia microbeam facility to image electronic properties of several CZT detectors. From the lateral TRIBICC measurement the electron and hole drift length profiles were calculated.

A new multidimensional high lateral resolution ion beam analysis technique, ion-electron emission microscopy (IEEM) is described. Using MeV energy ions, IEEM is shown to be capable of ion beam induced charge collection (IBICC) measurements in semiconductors. IEEM should also be capable of microscopically and multidimensionally mapping the surface and bulk composition of solids. As such, IEEM has nearly identical capabilities as traditional nuclear microprobe analysis, with the advantage that the ion beam does not have to be focused. The technique is based on determining the position where an individual ion enters the surface of the sample by projection secondary electron emission microscopy. The x-y origination point of a secondary electron, and hence the impact coordinates of the corresponding incident ion, is recorded with a position sensitive detector connected to a standard photoemission electron microscope (PEEM). These signals are then used to establish coincidence with IBICC, atomic, or nuclear reaction induced ion beam analysis signals simultaneously caused by the incident ion. © 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.