Assessment of radiation impact on characteristics of semi-conductor devices used in electronic communication systems

It has been pointed out that semiconductor devices used in electronic communication systems when exposed to strong extra terrestrial radiation are some times prone to disorder. In the present study, effects of neutrons, laser beams and γ-ray radiation of different doses on basic semiconductor devices such as n-p-n transistors, JFETs and ICs of op-amp and NAND gates have been studied. The n-p-n transistors and op-amp ICs are found to be badly affected by γ-ray radiation up to 50 kGy and 75 kGy doses respectively. In the present study, it is found that the available laser beam and thermal neutrons, being of low energies, cause no measurable damaging effect on the semiconductor devices.