Energy Deposition by Ultrahigh Energy Ions in Large and Small Sensitive Volumes

The deposition of energy in large and small sensitive volumes is studied after ultrahigh energy heavy-ion irradiation. We demonstrate that the energy deposition increase effect previously reported in p-i-n diode detectors due to delta electrons occurs only in large sensitive volumes, but not in small ones, typical of advanced microelectronic devices, such as the cells of a 3-D NAND Flash memories. We attribute this effect to the trajectories of the secondary electrons.