Application and development of ion-source technology for radiation-effects testing of electronics

Abstract

Studies of heavy-ion induced single event effect (SEE) on space electronics are necessary to verify the operation of the components in the harsh radiation environment. These studies are conducted by using high-energy heavy-ion beams to simulate the radiation effects in space. The ion beams are accelerated as so-called ion cocktails, containing several ion beam species with similar mass-to-charge ratio, covering a wide range of linear energy transfer (LET) values also present in space. The use of cocktails enables fast switching between beam species during testing. Production of these high-energy ion cocktails poses challenging requirements to the ion sources because in most laboratories reaching the necessary beam energies requires very high charge state ions. There are two main technologies producing these beams: The electron beam ion source EBIS and the electron cyclotron resonance ion source ECRIS. The EBIS is most suitable for pulsed accelerators, while ECRIS is most suitable for use with cyclotrons, which are the most common accelerators used in these applications.At the Accelerator Laboratory of the University of Jyväskylä (JYFL), radiation effects testing is currently performed using a K130 cyclotron and a 14GHz ECRIS at a beam energy of 9.3MeV/u. A new 18GHz ECRIS, pushing the limits of the normal conducting ECR technology is under development at JYFL. The performances of existing 18GHz ion sources have been compared, and based on this analysis, a 16.2MeV/u beam cocktail with 1999MeV 126Xe44+ being the most challenging component to has been chosen for development at JYFL. The properties of the suggested beam cocktail are introduced and discussed.