In-Depth Analysis on Radiation Induced Multi-Level Dark Current Random Telegraph Signal in Silicon Solid State Image Sensors

Abstract

Radiation-induced phenomena constitute a big concern for image sensors dedicated to space application. Particles (such as protons or electrons) can impact the crystalline structure of the detector and create switches in the dark response. This may be a problem, especially for calibration and so on image quality. This article aims at expressing the method used for switch detection and showing some properties of these Random Telegraph Signals (RTS), concerning, among other things, their amplitudes, discrete levels, and switching times. A first analysis of these results is also given.

Radiation-Induced Variable Retention Time in Dynamic Random Access Memories

“…Some of the amplitude activation energies for the neutron irradiated DRAM cells correspond well to the typical ≈ 0.55 eV generally measured on DC-RTS in the absence of electric field enhancement, i.e. in a state-of-the-art photodiode [23]. However, most of the leakage current related (i.e.…”

“…DC-RTS in solid state image sensor is caused by generation centers in the depletion region of reverse biased photodiodes that exhibit meta-stable generation current levels [31]. Even if electric field enhancement has been proposed in the past to justify the large DC-RTS amplitudes in early work on CCDs [15] and active pixel sensor technologies [28], recent results on state-of-the-art CIS technologies tend to indicate that the electric field does not play a significant role in the generation rate of DC-RTS centers [17], [23], [37], [41] except if an electric field hot spot is created by design [42] or if DC-RTS is studied in non-optimized PN junction with much higher electric fields than the photodiode [37]. Hence, the physical generation mechanism behind photodiode DC-RTS current in mature silicon image sensor technologies is considered to be a classical SRH generation current without EFE.…”

Simulation of Single Particle Displacement Damage in Silicon–Part II: Generation and Long-Time Relaxation of Damage Structure

“…10b). These evolutions seem very similar to the ones of the DC-RTS observed in CMOS Active Pixel Image Sensors (CMOS-APS) [7,28]. The example of Fig.…”

Total Ionizing Dose Radiation-Induced Dark Current Random Telegraph Signal in Pinned Photodiode CMOS Image Sensors

“…Transfer Gate Sense Node N space charge region come from the oxide interfaces. These two cases lead to different RTS characteristics.Whereas displacement damage dose induced DC-RTS have been extensively studied (see for example [4], [5] and references therein), very little is known about Total Ionizing Dose (TID) induced Dark Current RTS [3], [6], [7] and interface metastable generation centers in integrated circuits in general [8].…”