Ohio State joins $5M Air Force study of radiation effects on electronics
The Ohio State University has joined a multi-institutional partnership selected to lead the Center of Excellence in Radiation Effects by the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the Air Force Research Lab.
The $5 million, five-year award brings together experts from Ohio State, the University of California at Santa Barbara and Vanderbilt University, which leads the program.
The goal of the new center is to enhance our understanding of radiation effects in state-of-the-art materials and emerging technologies, including wide and ultrawide bandgap semiconductors, infrared detectors, and space solar cells, as well as next-generation silicon-based and silicon-derived tech.
Researchers believe a better understanding of radiation effects on emerging technologies will enable efficient design and qualification of new radiation-tolerant parts, assessment of the reliability and survivability of emerging technologies, and quantification of radiation-induced permanent damage and error rates in technologies needed for next-generation Defense systems.
“The Vanderbilt-Ohio State-UCSB team has a long history of technical collaboration through several DOD Multidisciplinary University Research Initiatives specifically focused on radiation effects in electronics, and through related projects,” said principal investigator Ronald Schrimpf, director of Vanderbilt University’s Institute for Space and Defense Electronics and Orrin H. Ingram Professor of Engineering. “This team also has ongoing technical relationships with researchers in Air Force laboratories that will be expanded to take advantage of COE resources.”
Ohio State’s role in the center is unique, with researchers focusing on three primary technologies of interest: wide-bandgap electronics, infrared detectors and space solar cells.
The data produced by measurements made by Ohio State’s Electronic Materials and Devices Lab (EMDL) will be used to develop models that can predict the performance of advanced semiconductor devices operating in space and within Defense systems. EMDL researchers can detect missing atoms at a sensitivity of better than one part per billion and, ultimately, connect how missing atoms impact the operation of full-scale devices and circuits.
“The Ohio State team has decades of experience and is a leader in characterization of atomic defects in semiconductors materials and devices,” said principal investigator Steven Ringel, a Distinguished University Professor and Neal A. Smith Chair Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering. “In this new center, Ohio State will lead the effort to explore how high-energy particle radiation of the type that is present in space applications, such as communication and surveillance satellites, manifests as crystal defects that impact the resilience of advanced device technologies.”
The Ohio State team is led by principal investigators Ringel, who is also executive director of the Institute for Materials Research (IMR) and associate vice president for research at Ohio State, and Electrical and Computer Engineering Research Associate Professor Aaron Arehart. They collaborate with senior investigators Tyler Grassman, an associate professor in Materials Science and Engineering, and Sanjay Krishna, the George R. Smith Chair in Engineering. Krishna joined Ohio State through the university’s Materials and Manufacturing for Sustainability Discovery Theme, operated by IMR.
Story by Mike Huson, Institute for Materials REsearch
