ATOMIC DISPLACEMENT AND TOTAL IONIZING DOSE DAMAGE IN SEMICONDUCTORS

A high energy particle interacts with matter in different ways depending on its energy, mass charge state and the species it interacts with. It is a good practice to classify the damage contribution into Displacement and Ionization, the latter is often called Total Ionizing Dose of shorthand TID. In the following we deal with basics of displacement and ionization damage on semiconductor materials and devices in order to get a qualitative and quantitative understanding of the mechanisms involved, which is a prerequisite to properly predict the operational lifetime of a certain device in a specified space environment.