SEU due to electrons in silicon devices with nanometric sensitive volumes and small critical charge

With the advent of devices sensitive to single event upset (SEU) by direct ionization of protons, the possibility of SEU due to fast δ-electrons has been recently raised. Here, we use our Monte Carlo code, along with a simple algorithm, to evaluate the possibility of SEU due to an electron, e-SEU. We calculate the cross section for the electron to deposit a given energy in a small sensitive volume. The method is demonstrated for several electron energies, for X-rays, and for 100 MeV protons. We show the necessity of the full Monte Carlo calculations for the complicated tracking of the deposited energy. The high e-SEU cross sections found in the studied cases show that they should be taken into account in device designing.