DEVICE PERFORMANCE CHARACTERISTICS AS RELATED TO RADIATION DAMAGE IN SEMICONDUCTOR MATERIALS.

Radiation damage to bulk semiconductor materials and semiconductor devices has been investigated. Though the space radiation environment has been discussed, primary emphasis has been placed on the nuclear radiation environment since more experimental work has been done in the latter field. The Hall-Shockley-Read equations for describing minority carrier lifetime as a function of a single recombination level has been modified to account for the presence of two recombination levels. The resulting equations are in reasonably good agreement with the experimental work of O.L. Curtis on neutron damage to bulk silicon. The latest experimental work on radiation damage to bipolar transistors, semiconductor diodes, field effect transistors, and integrated circuits has been reviewed. Suggestions are included for establishing the minimum number of experimental and theoretical programs necessary to obtain the information required to eventually produce semiconductor devices which are relatively insensitive to the known radiation environments.