Single event upset tests of an 80-Mb/s optical receiver

This paper studies the single event upset (SEU) sensitivity of a radiation-tolerant 80-Mb/s receiver developed for the CMS Tracker digital optical link. Bit error rate (BER) measurements were made while irradiating the receiver with protons and neutrons at different beam energies and incident angles and for a wide range of optical power levels in the link. Monte Carlo simulations have also been used to assist in the interpretation of the experimental results. As expected, the photodiode is the most sensitive element to SEU. The fake signal induced by direct ionization dominates the bit-error cross-section only for protons incident on the photodiode at large angles and low levels of optical power. Comparison of the neutron and proton bit-error cross-sections demonstrates that nuclear interactions contribute significantly to the proton-induced SEU errors and that they will dominate the radiation-induced error rate in the real Tracker application.