Effects of ion damage on IBICC and SEU imaging

The effect of displacement and ionizing dose damage on ion-beam-induced-charge-collection (IBICC) and single-event-upset (SEU) imaging are explored. IBICC imaging is not affected by ionizing dose damage, and its dependence on displacement damage is a complex function of the structure of the samples used in this study. Degradation of the IBICC signal is controlled by displacement damage that occurs at different rates in the heavily doped substrate and lightly doped epitaxial silicon layer, leading to a non-linear dependence of inverse degradation versus ion fluence. The effect of ion exposure on the electrical performance of complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) static random access memories (SRAMs) is solely related to ionizing dose effects in the transistor oxides. With SEU imaging, we found that an additional region became sensitive to upset with ion fluence probably as a result of ionizing dose effects on the restoring transistors. Finally, SEU during IBICC imaging resulted in charge collection from both p-drains of a memory cell. Implications of damage on the use of these microbeam techniques are discussed.