Radiation Effects in Silicon

Any silicon device that has left the manufacturing process and goes into an application will be exposed to some degree of high-energy electromagnetic or particle radiation. Most devices, however, have seen the highest degree of exposure to particle irradiation already during the manufacturing process, the most common irradiation process being ion implantation. Less common is the exposure of silicon intended for the manufacture of high-voltage power devices to high fluences of low-energy neutrons for the purpose of neutron transmutation doping and these bipolar devices may also have been exposed to the various methods using high-energy electrons, protons, alpha particles and gamma rays to adjust carrier lifetimes or doping levels. These methods will be described in this section.