Radiation Effects Microscopy

Abstract

Radiation effect microscopy (REM) describes two related areas of research that are used to study semiconductor materials, devices and the effect of ionizing radiation on their electronic properties and performance. First, ion beam induced currents (IBIC) are studied in an imaging mode and/or second the effect of the ion impact on the logic state of microelectronic components is investigated as a function of position of the incident ion (single event effect (SEE) imaging). This article reviews the most important developments and achievements of the technique during the last decade in terms of hardware and analysis. Several laboratories have developed dedicated data acquisition systems that allow the time resolved current or integrated current pulses to be digitized and the acquired waveforms to be analyzed offline. The time resolved data has improved the type of information that can be gained to include charge carrier drift velocities, diffusion effects and subsequently carrier lifetimes on nanosecond timescales. Computer modeling and simulations have been demonstrated to be very successful in describing the experimental data and will be increasingly applied to more complex device structures. Some laboratories have implemented temperature control to study temperature activated charge carrier re‐emission of defect levels and reduced temperatures can also be used to improve signal to noise. Currently, most common are wide band gap materials and semiconductor diodes or related devices as well as Silicon and SiGe based microelectronic chips, but there are indications that the application of REM might broaden in the future.