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Radiation-Hardened Sensors, Circuits and Systems
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Radiation-Hardened Sensors, Circuits and Systems

A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Physical Sensors".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2020) | Viewed by 29040

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Hyung-Min Lee

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Electrical Engineering, Korea University, Seoul 02841, Republic of Korea
Interests: analog/mixed-signal IC design; radiation-tolerant electronics; radiation hardening by design (RHBD); power-management circuits; biomedical microsystem
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Ickhyun Song

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Electronic Engineering, Hanyang University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
Interests: extreme-environment electronics; high-frequency/speed analog circuits; memory devices
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Radiation effects on sensor systems have been critical issues in various fields, such as medical instruments, high-energy physical experiments, space electronics, and nuclear applications, which require accurate sensing and precise control of environmental parameters. Silicon-based electronic devices and integrated circuits (IC) can be affected by both accumulative and instantaneous radiation effects, such as total ionizing dose (TID) and single event effect (SEE), respectively, which change the device parameters and degrade the circuit performance. To reduce the radiation effects on sensors, circuits, and systems, three radiation-hardening techniques in multiple aspects have been widely considered: radiation hardening by process (RHBP), radiation hardening by shielding (RHBS), and radiation hardening by design (RHBD). While those techniques play an important role in guaranteeing the reliability and safety of the sensor system, further advances are still required to tolerate harsher radiation environments with better precision for longer operational periods.   

The main goal of this Special Issue is to seek high-quality papers that propose technological breakthroughs in radiation-hardening approaches for sensor systems, including radiation-tolerant sensors and devices, radiation-hardened IC design, algorithms for radiation-hardened systems, and compact modeling and test methodologies of radiation effects. The topics of interest include but are not limited to:

  • Radiation-tolerant sensors and electronic devices;
  • Design of radiation-hardened ICs (analog/RF/mixed-signal/digital);
  • Compact modeling of radiation effects in sensors, devices, and circuits;
  • Calibration and error correction for radiation-hardened sensor systems;
  • Test methodologies of radiation effects;
  • Built-in self-test (BIST) techniques for sensor systems in radiation environments.

Prof. Dr. Hyung-Min Lee
Prof. Dr. Ickhyun Song
Guest Editors

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Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

19 pages, 698 KiB  
Article
A Study of the Radiation Tolerance of CVD Diamond to 70 MeV Protons, Fast Neutrons and 200 MeV Pions
by Lukas Bäni, Andreas Alexopoulos, Marina Artuso, Felix Bachmair, Marcin Ryszard Bartosik, Helge Christoph Beck, Vincenzo Bellini, Vladimir Belyaev, Benjamin Bentele, Alexandre Bes, Jean-Marie Brom, Gabriele Chiodini, Dominik Chren, Vladimir Cindro, Gilles Claus, Johann Collot, John Cumalat, Sébastien Curtoni, Anne Evelyn Dabrowski, Raffaello D’Alessandro, Denis Dauvergne, Wim De Boer, Christian Dorfer, Marc Dünser, Gerald Eigen, Vladimir Eremin, Jacopo Forneris, Laurent Gallin-Martel, Marie-Laure Gallin-Martel, Kock Kiam Gan, Martin Gastal, Abderrahman Ghimouz, Mathieu Goffe, Joel Goldstein, Alexander Golubev, Andrej Gorišek, Eugene Grigoriev, Jörn Grosse-Knetter, Aidan Grummer, Bojan Hiti, Dmitry Hits, Martin Hoeferkamp, Jérôme Hosselet, Fabian Hügging, Chris Hutson, Jens Janssen, Harris Kagan, Keida Kanxheri, Richard Kass, Mladen Kis, Gregor Kramberger, Sergey Kuleshov, Ana Lacoste, Stefano Lagomarsino, Alessandro Lo Giudice, Ivan López Paz, Eric Lukosi, Chaker Maazouzi, Igor Mandić, Sara Marcatili, Alysia Marino, Cédric Mathieu, Mauro Menichelli, Marko Mikuž, Arianna Morozzi, Francesco Moscatelli, Joshua Moss, Raymond Mountain, Alexander Oh, Paolo Olivero, Daniele Passeri, Heinz Pernegger, Roberto Perrino, Federico Picollo, Michal Pomorski, Renato Potenza, Arnulf Quadt, Fatah Rarbi, Alessandro Re, Michael Reichmann, Shaun Roe, Olivier Rossetto, Diego Alejandro Sanz Becerra, Christian J. Schmidt, Stephen Schnetzer, Silvio Sciortino, Andrea Scorzoni, Sally Seidel, Leonello Servoli, Dale Shane Smith, Bruno Sopko, Vit Sopko, Stefania Spagnolo, Stefan Spanier, Kevin Stenson, Robert Stone, Bjarne Stugu, Concetta Sutera, Michael Traeger, William Trischuk, Marco Truccato, Cristina Tuvè, Jaap Velthuis, Stephen Wagner, Rainer Wallny, Jianchun Wang, Norbert Wermes, Jayashani Wickramasinghe, Mahfoud Yamouni, Justas Zalieckas, Marko Zavrtanik, Kazuhiko Hara, Yoichi Ikegami, Osamu Jinnouchi, Takashi Kohriki, Shingo Mitsui, Ryo Nagai, Susumu Terada and Yoshinobu Unnoadd Show full author list remove Hide full author list
Sensors 2020, 20(22), 6648; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20226648 - 20 Nov 2020
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 5373
Abstract
We measured the radiation tolerance of commercially available diamonds grown by the Chemical Vapor Deposition process by measuring the charge created by a 120 GeV hadron beam in a 50 μm pitch strip detector fabricated on each diamond sample before and after [...] Read more.
We measured the radiation tolerance of commercially available diamonds grown by the Chemical Vapor Deposition process by measuring the charge created by a 120 GeV hadron beam in a 50 μm pitch strip detector fabricated on each diamond sample before and after irradiation. We irradiated one group of samples with 70 MeV protons, a second group of samples with fast reactor neutrons (defined as energy greater than 0.1 MeV), and a third group of samples with 200 MeV pions, in steps, to (8.8±0.9) × 1015 protons/cm2, (1.43±0.14) × 1016 neutrons/cm2, and (6.5±1.4) × 1014 pions/cm2, respectively. By observing the charge induced due to the separation of electron–hole pairs created by the passage of the hadron beam through each sample, on an event-by-event basis, as a function of irradiation fluence, we conclude all datasets can be described by a first-order damage equation and independently calculate the damage constant for 70 MeV protons, fast reactor neutrons, and 200 MeV pions. We find the damage constant for diamond irradiated with 70 MeV protons to be 1.62±0.07(stat)±0.16(syst)× 10−18 cm2/(p μm), the damage constant for diamond irradiated with fast reactor neutrons to be 2.65±0.13(stat)±0.18(syst)× 10−18 cm2/(n μm), and the damage constant for diamond irradiated with 200 MeV pions to be 2.0±0.2(stat)±0.5(syst)× 10−18 cm2/(π μm). The damage constants from this measurement were analyzed together with our previously published 24 GeV proton irradiation and 800 MeV proton irradiation damage constant data to derive the first comprehensive set of relative damage constants for Chemical Vapor Deposition diamond. We find 70 MeV protons are 2.60 ± 0.29 times more damaging than 24 GeV protons, fast reactor neutrons are 4.3 ± 0.4 times more damaging than 24 GeV protons, and 200 MeV pions are 3.2 ± 0.8 more damaging than 24 GeV protons. We also observe the measured data can be described by a universal damage curve for all proton, neutron, and pion irradiations we performed of Chemical Vapor Deposition diamond. Finally, we confirm the spatial uniformity of the collected charge increases with fluence for polycrystalline Chemical Vapor Deposition diamond, and this effect can also be described by a universal curve. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Radiation-Hardened Sensors, Circuits and Systems)
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11 pages, 5337 KiB  
Article
Integrated Circuit Design for Radiation-Hardened Charge-Sensitive Amplifier Survived up to 2 Mrad
by Changyeop Lee, Gyuseong Cho, Troy Unruh, Seop Hur and Inyong Kwon
Sensors 2020, 20(10), 2765; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20102765 - 12 May 2020
Cited by 15 | Viewed by 4789
Abstract
According to the continuous development of metal-oxide semiconductor (MOS) fabrication technology, transistors have naturally become more radiation-tolerant through steadily decreasing gate-oxide thickness, increasing the tunneling probability between gate-oxide and channel. Unfortunately, despite this radiation-hardened property of developed transistors, the field of nuclear power [...] Read more.
According to the continuous development of metal-oxide semiconductor (MOS) fabrication technology, transistors have naturally become more radiation-tolerant through steadily decreasing gate-oxide thickness, increasing the tunneling probability between gate-oxide and channel. Unfortunately, despite this radiation-hardened property of developed transistors, the field of nuclear power plants (NPPs) requires even higher radiation hardness levels. Particularly, total ionizing dose (TID) of approximately 1 Mrad could be required for readout circuitry under severe accident conditions with 100 Mrad around a reactor in-core required. In harsh radiating environments such as NPPs, sensors such as micro-pocket-fission detectors (MPFD) would be a promising technology to be operated for detecting neutrons in reactor cores. For those sensors, readout circuits should be fundamentally placed close to sensing devices for minimizing signal interferences and white noise. Therefore, radiation hardening ability is necessary for the circuits under high radiation environments. This paper presents various integrated circuit designs for a radiation hardened charge-sensitive amplifier (CSA) by using SiGe 130 nm and Si 180 nm fabrication processes with different channel widths and transistor types of complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) and bipolar CMOS (BiCMOS). These circuits were tested under γ–ray environment with Cobalt-60 of high level activity: 490 kCi. The experiment results indicate amplitude degradation of 2.85%–34.3%, fall time increase of 201–1730 ns, as well as a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 0.07–11.6 dB decrease with irradiation dose increase. These results can provide design guidelines for radiation hardening operational amplifiers in terms of transistor sizes and structures. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Radiation-Hardened Sensors, Circuits and Systems)
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11 pages, 9111 KiB  
Article
Development of Novel Real-Time Radiation Systems Using 4-Channel Sensors
by Yohei Inaba, Masaaki Nakamura, Masayuki Zuguchi and Koichi Chida
Sensors 2020, 20(9), 2741; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20092741 - 11 May 2020
Cited by 27 | Viewed by 3629
Abstract
Radiation-related tissue injuries after medical radiation procedures, such as fluoroscopically guided intervention (FGI), have been reported in patients. Real-time monitoring of medical radiation exposure administered to patients during FGI is important to avoid such tissue injuries. In our previous study, we reported a [...] Read more.
Radiation-related tissue injuries after medical radiation procedures, such as fluoroscopically guided intervention (FGI), have been reported in patients. Real-time monitoring of medical radiation exposure administered to patients during FGI is important to avoid such tissue injuries. In our previous study, we reported a novel (prototype) real-time radiation system for FGI. However, the prototype sensor indicated low sensitivity to radiation exposure from the side and back, although it had high-quality fundamental characteristics. Therefore, we developed a novel 4-channel sensor with modified shape and size than the previous sensor, and evaluated the basic performance (i.e., measured the energy, dose linearity, dose rate, and angular dependence) of the novel and previous sensors. Both sensors of our real-time dosimeter system demonstrated the low energy dependence, excellent dose linearity (R2 = 1.0000), and good dose rate dependence (i.e., within 5% statistical difference). Besides, the sensitivity of 0° ± 180° in the horizontal and vertical directions was almost 100% sensitivity for the new sensor, which significantly improved the angular dependence. Moreover, the novel dosimeter exerted less influence on X-ray images (fluoroscopy) than other sensors because of modifying a small shape and size. Therefore, the developed dosimeter system is expected to be useful for measuring the exposure of patients to radiation doses during FGI procedures. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Radiation-Hardened Sensors, Circuits and Systems)
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10 pages, 1610 KiB  
Article
Mitigation of Single-Event Effects in SiGe-HBT Current-Mode Logic Circuits
by Md Arifur R. Sarker, Seungwoo Jung, Adrian Ildefonso, Ani Khachatrian, Stephen P. Buchner, Dale McMorrow, Pauline Paki, John D. Cressler and Ickhyun Song
Sensors 2020, 20(9), 2581; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20092581 - 1 May 2020
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 3625
Abstract
It has been known that negative feedback loops (internal and external) in a SiGe heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBT) DC current mirrors improve single-event transient (SET) response; both the peak transient current and the settling time significantly decrease. In the present work, we demonstrate [...] Read more.
It has been known that negative feedback loops (internal and external) in a SiGe heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBT) DC current mirrors improve single-event transient (SET) response; both the peak transient current and the settling time significantly decrease. In the present work, we demonstrate how radiation hardening by design (RHBD) techniques utilized in DC bias blocks only (current mirrors) can also improve the SET response in AC signal paths of switching circuits (e.g., current-mode logic, CML) without any additional hardening in those AC signal paths. Four CML circuits both with and without RHBD current mirrors were fabricated in 130 nm SiGe HBT technology. Two existing RHBD techniques were employed separately in the current mirrors of the CML circuits: (1) applying internal negative feedback and (2) adding a large capacitor in a sensitive node. In addition, these methods are also combined to analyze the overall SET performance. The single-event transients of the fabricated circuits were captured under the two-photon-absorption laser-induced single-event environment. The measurement data clearly show significant improvements in SET response in the AC signal paths of the CML circuits by using the two radiation hardening techniques applied only in DC current mirrors. The peak output transient current is notably reduced, and the settling time upon a laser strike is shortened significantly. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Radiation-Hardened Sensors, Circuits and Systems)
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11 pages, 2026 KiB  
Article
Use of High-Field Electron Injection into Dielectrics to Enhance Functional Capabilities of Radiation MOS Sensors
by Dmitrii V. Andreev, Gennady G. Bondarenko, Vladimir V. Andreev and Alexander A. Stolyarov
Sensors 2020, 20(8), 2382; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20082382 - 22 Apr 2020
Cited by 19 | Viewed by 4608
Abstract
The paper suggests a design of radiation sensors based on metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) structures and p-channel radiation sensitive field effect transistors (RADFET) which are capable to function under conditions of high-field tunnel injection of electrons into the dielectric. We demonstrate that under these conditions, [...] Read more.
The paper suggests a design of radiation sensors based on metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) structures and p-channel radiation sensitive field effect transistors (RADFET) which are capable to function under conditions of high-field tunnel injection of electrons into the dielectric. We demonstrate that under these conditions, the dose sensitivity of the sensor can be significantly raised, and, besides, the intensity of radiation can be monitored in situ on the basis of determining the ionization current arising in the dielectric film. The paper proposes the model allowing to make a quantitative analysis of charge effects taking place in the radiation MOS sensors under concurrent influence of ionization radiation and high-field tunnel injection of electrons. Use of the model allows to properly interpret results of the radiation control. In order to test the designed sensors experimentally, we have utilized γ-rays, α-particle radiation, and proton beams. We have acquired experimental results verifying the enhancement of function capabilities of the radiation MOS sensors when these have been under high-field injection of electrons into the dielectric. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Radiation-Hardened Sensors, Circuits and Systems)
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14 pages, 5874 KiB  
Article
A Radiation-Hardened SAR ADC with Delay-Based Dual Feedback Flip-Flops for Sensor Readout Systems
by Duckhoon Ro, Changhong Min, Myounggon Kang, Ik Joon Chang and Hyung-Min Lee
Sensors 2020, 20(1), 171; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20010171 - 27 Dec 2019
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 4544
Abstract
For stable and effective control of the sensor system, analog sensor signals such as temperature, pressure, and electromagnetic fields should be accurately measured and converted to digital bits. However, radiation environments, such as space, flight, nuclear power plants, and nuclear fusion reactors, as [...] Read more.
For stable and effective control of the sensor system, analog sensor signals such as temperature, pressure, and electromagnetic fields should be accurately measured and converted to digital bits. However, radiation environments, such as space, flight, nuclear power plants, and nuclear fusion reactors, as well as high-reliability applications, such as automotive semiconductor systems, suffer from radiation effects that degrade the performance of the sensor readout system including analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) and cause system malfunctions. This paper investigates an optimal ADC structure in radiation environments and proposes a successive- approximation-register (SAR) ADC using delay-based double feedback flip-flops to enhance the system tolerance against radiation effects, including total ionizing dose (TID) and single event effects (SEE). The proposed flip-flop was fabricated using 130 nm complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) silicon-on-insulator (SOI) process, and its radiation tolerance was measured in actual radiation test facilities. Also, the proposed radiation-hardened SAR ADC with delay-based dual feedback flip-flops was designed and verified by utilizing compact transistor models, which reflect radiation effects to CMOS parameters, and radiation simulator computer aided design (CAD) tools. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Radiation-Hardened Sensors, Circuits and Systems)
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