Simulation of displacement damage of InP induced by protons and α-particles in low Earth orbit
Authors: Bai Yu-Rong , Li Pei , He Huan , Liu Fang , Li Wei , He Chao-Hui ,   School of Nuclear Science and Technology, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China
Published: December 2023

Indium phosphide (InP) material hasmany advantages, such as large band gap, high electron mobility, high photoelectric conversion efficiency, high temperature resistance, and radiation resistance, which is superior to silicon (Si) and gallium arsenide (GaAs). Meanwhile InP is widely used in optical communication, high-frequency millimeter waves, optoelectronic integrated circuits, satellite communication, space solar cells, and other fields. Radiation particles incident on InP device can generate displacement atoms inside the device through elastic processes. And these displacement atoms continue cascade collisions to generate lattice defects which are vacancies, interstitials, and clusters. These defects capture electrons-holes by defective energy levels in the energy band, and then resulting in a decrease in the life of minority carriers which is the reason of degradation of InP devices. The process of degradation of InP device, induced by lattice defects from ion-irradiation, is called displacement damage effect (DDE). The non-ionizing loss energy (NIEL) scaling is a useful method to predict the degradation of device caused by DDE of radiation particles. Many studies have shown that the NIEL is linearly related to the damage coefficient of InP device. Previous studies of radiation damage effect of InP device mainly focused on single-energy protons, electrons, and neutrons. Of the particles in low earth orbit (LEO),the vast majority of particles are protons, with a few being α particles and electrons, while the electron’s NIEL is too small and its DDE is negligible. The InP’s NIEL induced by proton and α energy in LEO has not been studied in detail. Therefore, this paper uses Monte Carlo software Geant4 to study the NIEL, damage energy distribution with depth, and annual total non-ionization loss energy generated by protons and α particles in LEO in 500/1000/5000 μm InP materials. The shielding of 150-μm-thick SiO<sub>2</sub> layer and 2.54-mm-thick Al layer from protons and α particles are used as InP solar cell and InP devices in spacecraft, respectively. It is found that the energy spectrum determines the non-ionizing damage energy <inline-formula><tex-math id="M1">\begin{document}$ {T}_{\text{dam}} $\end{document}</tex-math><alternatives><graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="5-20231499_M1.jpg"/><graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="5-20231499_M1.png"/></alternatives></inline-formula> distribution, and then influences the NIEL value: the NIEL value increases with <inline-formula><tex-math id="M2">\begin{document}$ {T}_{\text{dam}} $\end{document}</tex-math><alternatives><graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="5-20231499_M2.jpg"/><graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="5-20231499_M2.png"/></alternatives></inline-formula> increasing and thickness of InP material decreasing. And α NIEL is larger than proton’s, the single particle DDE of InP device, induced by α particles, should be concerned. The annual non-ionizing damage energy of proton accounts for 98%, which means that proton is the main factor degrading InP devices in LEO.