Australia’s External Ion Microbeam Irradiation Facility For Space Radiation Effects Testing

The new external ion microbeam irradiation facility at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology organisation (ANSTO) Centre for Accelerator Science (CAS) is presented. The CAS Heavy Ion Microprobe on the 10 MV ANTARES accelerator was recently upgraded with an enclosed chamber in air at ambient temperature and pressure. The chamber is the first one in Australia dedicated to the testing of electronic components, particularly Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS), for space qualification with ion microbeams. Post commissioning, GEANT4 Monte Carlo simulation capabilities were established to evaluate the Linear Energy Transfer (LET) and dose rate profile for ions. Proton beams with energy up to 9 MeV were simulated while propagating through the chamber and the COTS chips of interest. The encapsulation was etched to a minimal thickness to allow ions penetration into the silicon sensitive volume. Irradiation with 9 MeV protons were performed on a large number of COTS, allowing the investigation of Total Ionizing Dose (TID) and Single Event Effects (SEE) were investigated. The facility, the GEANT4 simulation, the in-house readout system, and the preliminary results are discussed in this paper. Our latest etching capability for removal of the surface encapsulation is also presented, together with material characterisation of the samples by scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive spectroscopy.