Characterization of proton damage in light-emitting diodes

Reliability and Radiation Hardness of Compound Semiconductors

“…Radiation tests on aged samples showed that aging and radiation damage could be considered separately, with no synergistic effects even though both environmental stress conditions decrease power output and increase the forward voltage required at a given light output [31]. However, it should be noted that much less degradation occurs when the LEDs are operated at low power compared to the maximum rated value.…”

“…Consequently there are still many applications of the older amphoterically doped LEDs. Figure 10 shows how proton damage affects various types of LEDs [36]. Note that there is a difference of about two orders of magnitude in damage sensitivity.…”

Assessing the impact of the space radiation environment on parametric degradation and single-event transients in optocouplers

“…Some of these were pointed out in the introduction to this section; we provide more detail on each issue here. a) Proton test energies: Because of the inconsistency between experimental determination of damage factors for LEDs and theoretical calculations for NIEL [12], [13], we do not recommend using NIEL to determine the mission equivalent fluence for a single test energy. Instead, we recommend that a suite of energies be used.…”

“…1) Observed radiation-induced degradation results from a combination of ionizing dose and displacement damage mechanisms, each affecting the individual optocoupler components differently [1], [7]. 2) Lack of consistency between experimental determination of damage factors for LEDs and theoretical calculations for nonionizing energy loss (NIEL) in III-V materials precludes use of NIEL to describe the energy dependence of displacement damage effects [12], [13]. 3) Application-specific testing is necessary [5], [7].…”

Recoverable degradation of blue InGaN-based light emitting diodes submitted to 3 MeV proton irradiation

“…[3][4][5] However, over the last few years, GaN has emerged as a reference material for the realization of both visible and ultraviolet LEDs, and high power/high efficiency transistors. Gallium nitride has an intrinsically high robustness to electric fields and to high temperatures.…”