Abstract
A Radiation Hard CMOS Active Pixel Image Sensor has been designed, manufactured and exposed to X and <formula formulatype="inline" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex Notation="TeX">$^{60}{\rm Co}\,\, \gamma $</tex></formula> -ray sources up to several MGy of Total Ionizing Dose (TID). It is demonstrated that a Radiation-Hardened-By-Design (RHBD) CMOS Image Sensor (CIS) can still provide useful images after <formula formulatype="inline" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex Notation="TeX">$10~\hbox{MGy}({\rm SiO}_2)$</tex></formula> (i.e. 1 Grad). This paper also presents the first detailed characterizations of CIS opto-electrical performances (i.e. dark current, quantum efficiency, gain, noise, transfer functions, etc.) in the MGy range. These results show that it is possible to design a CIS with good performances even after having absorbed several MGy. Four different RHBD photodiode designs are compared: a standard photodiode design, two well known RHBD layouts and a proposed improvement of the gated photodiode design. The proposed layout exhibits the best performances over the entire studied TID range and further optimizations are discussed. Several original MGy radiation effects are presented and discussed at the device and circuit levels and mitigation techniques are proposed to improve further the radiation hardness of future Rad-Hard CIS developments for extreme TID applications (e.g. for nuclear power plant monitoring/dismantling, experimental reactors (e.g. ITER) or next generation particle physics experiments (e.g. CERN)).
Highlights
T HERE is a fast growing interest in the development of compact radiation hard imaging systems based on solid state image sensors that are able to provide good qualityManuscript received July 10, 2015; revised October 01, 2015; accepted October 06, 2015
CMOS Image Sensors (CIS) has been explored up to a few tens of kGy [8]–[10] and some dark current measurements have been reported on a RHBD APS for electron microscopy up to 2 MGy [11]
To date, an image captured with a solid state image sensor exposed to 1 MGy or more has not been reported and the radiation hardness of a modern CIS technology in the MGy range has not been evaluated in literature
Summary
T HERE is a fast growing interest in the development of compact radiation hard imaging systems based on solid state image sensors that are able to provide good quality. (RHBD) Active Pixel Sensors (APS) has been explored and sometimes demonstrated (on technologies obsolete in most cases) up to several hundreds of kGy CMOS Image Sensors (CIS) has been explored up to a few tens of kGy (i.e. a few Mrad) [8]–[10] and some dark current measurements have been reported on a RHBD APS (not based on a CIS process) for electron microscopy up to 2 MGy [11]. To date, an image captured with a solid state image sensor exposed to 1 MGy or more has not been reported and the radiation hardness of a modern CIS technology in the MGy range has not been evaluated in literature. A new RHBD photodiode layout is proposed and its performances are compared to the most promising existing solutions
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