The ion photon emission microscope on SNL’s nuclear microprobe and in LBNL’s cyclotron facility

Radiation effects microscopy (REM) has evolved into an essential tool for the study, diagnostics and remedy of single event effects (SEE) in microelectronics devices, However, we are entering an era where the ion energies of the current systems are becoming inadequate for diagnosing SEE problems in modern ICs due to the great thickness of interlevel dielectric, metallization and passivation layers found on top of the active radiation-sensitive Si. Our solution is the ion photon emission microscope (IPEM), which eliminates the need to focus several GeV heavy ions. A tabletop IPEM is currently in use at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), operating with alpha particles, and showing 4 μm resolution. We have recently developed a second system, and installed it on one of the SNL nuclear microprobe lines to demonstrate the principle and prove its potential as a portable radiation effects microscope that can be installed at the LBNL GeV cyclotron facility. The microprobe system is currently operating with ∼2 μm resolution. The determined advantages of installing a similar system at the LBNL cyclotron facility will be discussed, in addition to recently measured optical characteristics of the various phosphor materials being investigated.