Capacitor-based isolation amplifiers for harsh radiation environments

Abstract

Commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) capacitor-based isolation amplifiers were irradiated at the Portuguese Research Reactor (PRR) in order to determine its tolerance to the displacement damage and total ionising dose (TID). The set of experimental data shows that some of these devices are suitable for zones inside future nuclear facilities where the expected total radiation damage would be below 2.2·10 13 1-MeV neutron/cm 2 and 230 Gy (Si). However, some drawbacks must be taken into account by the electronic designers such as the increase of the output offset voltage and the slight modification of the transmission gain.