Abstract
The characterization of commercial-grade power transistors upon high levels of particle irradiation is required to enable radiation tolerant LED power supplies for the new luminaires of CERN accelerator tunnels, which represent a harsh environment for semiconductor devices. This work describes the effects of 24 GeV/c proton irradiation on commercial GaN hybrid-drain-embedded gate injection transistors (HD-GITs) after a fluence of 5.9 × 1014 p/cm2. Measurements of drain leakage current, threshold voltage and Ids − Vds curves show that only a minor variation occurs in the electrical properties of GaN HD-GITs after the considered fluence; for example, an average increase of ≈11–13 mV is found in the threshold voltage upon irradiation. We also put forward a physical explanation of the observed degradation caused by proton irradiation; in particular, the electron drift velocity in the 2DEG channel at high electric fields appears to decrease due to a radiation-induced increase in phonon relaxation rate. Finally, an AC/DC LED power supply with current control using GaN HD-GITs is proposed for the new luminaires of CERN tunnels, meeting the requirements in terms of radiation hardness and light quality.
Highlights
CERN accelerator tunnels constitute a very harsh environment, where the yearly radiation levels on tunnel walls can exceed 1 kGy(Si) of absorbed dose and a 1 MeV neutron equivalent fluence in silicon of 5 × 1012 n/cm2 [1]
Notwithstanding the encouraging results from Hommels et al, it remains important to characterize hybrid-drain-embedded gate injection transistors (HD-GITs) at fluences lower than those reached in [26,27] and comparable to those expected after a multi-year radiation exposure on the tunnel walls of a typical section of CERN accelerators, in order to quantify the amount of radiation damage after a fluence more similar but still sufficiently higher than our minimum target value of 2.3 × 1013 n/cm2
We present the evolution of electrical characteristics of E19 and E07 HD-GITs with proton exposure, by starting with the analysis of the variations in drain leakage current Idss
Summary
CERN accelerator tunnels constitute a very harsh environment, where the yearly radiation levels on tunnel walls can exceed 1 kGy(Si) of absorbed dose and a 1 MeV neutron equivalent (neq) fluence in silicon of 5 × 1012 n/cm2 [1]. Based on the results obtained in [26,27,30], and given the lack of other previous reports on displacement damage of commercial devices with voltage rating ≥600 V (reports [18,24,25,28] are focused on SEE testing, and [29] describes only low-dose γ-ray irradiation), we selected Panasonic HD-GITs as potential candidate transistors for rad-hard LED power supplies. Notwithstanding the encouraging results from Hommels et al, it remains important to characterize HD-GITs at fluences lower than those reached in [26,27] and comparable to those expected after a multi-year radiation exposure on the tunnel walls of a typical section of CERN accelerators, in order to quantify the amount of radiation damage after a fluence more similar but still sufficiently higher than our minimum target value of 2.3 × 1013 n/cm2 This is required to verify if, at the expected radiation levels, HD-GITs are still essentially unaffected or if they already exhibit a small (but non-negligible) amount of damage. The proposed rad-had LED power supply is described in Section 4, and Section 5 is devoted to the conclusions
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