Exploring the Kinetics of Formation and Annealing of Single Particle Displacement Damage in Microvolumes of Silicon

An experimental method using a CMOS image sensor as test device is used to study the kinetics of formation and annealing of Single Particle Displacement Damage (SPDD) events in arrays of silicon microvolumes. The dark current level is monitored in real time under neutron irradiation, allowing to detect SPDD events and follow their subsequent annealing behavior. Both short term and long term annealing results are presented, with recordings from 75 ms to 4.5 days after SPDD events, performed with different integration times. A majority of pixels exhibits a continuous logarithmic relaxation; a selection of particular cases is finally presented, corresponding to pixels exhibiting Random Telegraph Signals.