Chapter 3 - Nuclear power reactions driven radiation hardening environments

Abstract

Radiation hardening, also known as “rad hardening,” and radiation survivability testing are of critical importance to defense, aerospace, and energy industries. Everyone knows that excessive exposure to radiation can cause severe damage to living things, but high radiation levels can also cause radiation damage to other objects, especially electronics. Ionizing radiation in particular, including directly ionizing radiation such as alpha and beta particles and indirectly ionizing radiation such as gamma rays and neutron radiation, is profoundly damaging to the semiconductors that make up the backbone of all modern electronics. Just one charged particle can interfere with thousands of electrons, causing signal noise, disrupting digital circuits, and even causing permanent physical radiation damage. Radiation hardening involves designing radiation-tolerant electronics and components that are tolerant of the massive levels of ionizing radiation, such as cosmic outer space radiation, X-ray radiation in medical or security environments, and high energy radiation within nuclear power plants. In order to test these components and determine whether they are sufficiently hardened, radiation-hardened electronics manufacturers perform rigorous testing as part of their product manufacturing processes. Components which pass these tests go into production and can be described as “radiation-hardened”; components that do not go back to design.