2019 International Siberian Conference on Control and Communications (SIBCON)
Sensor of Neutron Fluence for Radiation Tests
Yu.N.Barmakov, A.V.Butina, I.V. Butin/9)HRNWLVWRYD
Dukhov Research Institute of Automatics (VNIIA), Moscow, Russia
Abstract – This paper describes the research results of
bipolar transistor as sensors of neutron fluence with particle
energy larger than 0.1 MeV. The bipolar transistor connection
diagram an device realization based on STM32 microcontroller
are described. STM32 is used for registration of bipolar
transistors gain factor the value of wtich changes under the
radiation. The specific features of electrical mode of bipolar
transistor during their calibration at reference neutron source
and their application as sensors for radiation tests at neutron
sources with different spectral distribution were taken into
account. The proposed connection diagram and constructive
solutions provide multichannel monitoring of radiation
environment in "on-line" mode using minimum of additional
communications lines.
I. INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW
Researchers use a lot of different facilities neutron
sources for radiation tests of electronic devices and its
components. The spectral distribution of such sources
sometimes differs significantly. For comprehensive analysis
and results correlating for tests at different neutron sources
the researcher should have information about flux density or
neutron fluence as well as spectral distribution which
determines the value of semiconductor material damage.
In ASTM standard E722 [1] the neutron fluence is
described in terms of the equivalent monoenergetic neutron
fluencile per unit monitor response. The monitor foil is used
to predict the equivalent monoenergetic neutron fluence
which is only valid in case of the constant energy spectrum.
Neutron exposure of a sample is commonly given in
terms of the neutron fluence, n/cm2. However, the amount of
displacement damage from neutrons in a given material
depends on neutron energy. Therefore, in order to allow
meaningful comparisons between experiments using
different neutron energy spectra, neutron fluences are often
determined in terms of ("normalized to") an equivalent
1-MeV neutron fluence, which is the fluence of 1-MeV
neutrons that produces the same electronic effect as the
neutron spectrum used in a particular study [2].
The radiation response of many types of devices (e.g.,
bipolar transistors, solar cells, focal-plane arrays, and other
detectors) can be predicted reasonably well based on
calculations of the amount of displacement damage energy
imparted to the primary knock-on atoms [3, 4].
The Messenger-Spratt equation [5] was used to describe
the radiation response of the common emitter dc current
gain factor of a bipolar transistor:
(1)
where, H21(0) and H21(Fn) are the initial gain and final
gain respectively, KN the particle- and energy-dependent
displacement damage factor, and Fn the particle fluence. The
value of damage factor is determined experimentally by gain
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factor measurements of devices under test (DUT) (for a
particular set of device operating conditions) after
incremental exposures at a given particle energy.
To compare the results of radiation test for different
neutron energy spectra, one uses a comparison method for
neutron fluences F in terms of reference reactor equivalent
neutron fluence Fref , that produces the same damage effect
[6-8].
Our recent work [13] showed the efficient practical
method for bipolar transistor application as neutron fluence
sensors. We have constructed a portable sensor prototype
based on STM32 microcontroller for transistors parameters
registration during the radiation tests using minimum of
additional communications lines.
II. BACKGROUND INFORMATION
There is a well-known function of (E) dependence for Si
[1, 4, 5], which can be used to estimate damage effect Dn of
neutron radiation with a spectral distribution (E):
(2)
An alternative method of determining the effectiveness of
neutron radiation is a method to compare the results of
silicon structures irradiation to the results for the reference
source by using the sensors like bipolar transistors.
The gain factor dependence (21) on the neutron fluence
can be described by the Messenger-Spratt equation. Types
of bipolar transistors planned to be used as sensors depend
on the range of neutron fluence values.
During the application of proposed evaluation method of
the neutron fluence effectiveness at stage of sensor
calibration as well as at the stage of the application at source
with different neutron spectral distribution the researcher
should take into account the results of gain factor H21E at a
fixed value of emitter current (the stage we called
“calibration”) one can calculate values of KN.
III. THE SENSORS CONNECTION
Fig.1 shows a connection diagram of sensors: for each
sensor there is only one additional line of communication,
which is essential for complex objects tests (when we have
the limited number of communications lines – and we are to
select information either depth of DUT control or refining of
radiation environment). The power supply voltage is equal
to +5.0 V. The attenuator at the output of sensor is used for
reducing sensor output voltage to the ADC range
measurement (from 0.0 V to 3.0 V).
The sensors irradiation is carried out in active mode. The
values of ICollector and IBase are measured remotely.
The value of sensor coefficient H21 can be determined
using the results of measurements as (3).
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IEEE
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 2019 International Siberian Conference on Control and Communications (SIBCON)

The executed researches result in the following

dependence for the constant KN (see Fig.2) correlating with
emitter current:

(4)

where N (I_emitter) and N (I_) are values of damage

constant for emitter current of transistor at stage
“calibration” (Iemitter) and at stage “measurements” (Ix)
respectively;  is the exponential function index.
The values of the constants of damage KN for several
values of I and  are determined during the calibration
process.

V. THE DEVICE FOR SENSORS PARAMETERS REGISTRATION

Fig.1 – The sensor connection diagram for «on-line» registration
The multi-channel registration of sensors parameters can
be developed using modern microcontroller devices [9]. It
IV. THE ALGORITHM OF SENSOR APPLICATION allows simplifying the processing of measurement results.
FOR NEUTRON FLUENCE REGISTRATION Besides, the autonomy of the portable microcontroller-based
We propose using the following sequence of operations devices is their certain advantage.
for radiation tests: The key item of developed device is STM32
1. The voltage Vcc should be set at the programmable microcontroller [9, 10]. It digitalizes the analog signal
power supply output. coming from Sensor#1 to Sensor#4, recorders the digital
2. “Data acquisition/switch unit” measures the current signals in microcontroller data register, calculates the
consumption for each sensor (as a sum of collector and base current values of sensors informative parameter (H21),
current for each of transistor). transforms the data in code combination. This code comes to
3. The gain factor value 21 for sensor is calculated LED indicator through microcontroller's parallel
using equation input/output port.
I Collector (VCC − 2V ADC ) ⋅ R Base
H 21E = = (3)
I Base (VCC − V BE ) ⋅ RCollector

whereVBEV– voltage decrease at emitter junction,V;

Vcc – voltage value at output of programmable power supply, V;
RBasH – resistance in transistor base line, Ohm;
RCollector – resistance in transistor collector line, Ohm.

4. The neutron fluence value correspondent to neutron

fluence of the reference reactor is calculated finally.

The feature of proposed technique is that base current Fig.3 – The diagram of measurements using the microcontroller unit
must be kept constant during the radiation tests. Thus, you
Fig.3 presents the functional diagram of the device
need to take into account the coefficient correlating the
according to given requirements. Fig.4 shows the
dependence of the transistors damage factor and the
appearance of developed device for sensors parameters
injection level of minority carriers in the base of transistor.
registration.

Fig.4 – The appearance of developed device prototype

Fig.2 – Dependence of damage constant (N) on emitter current (Ie) for sensors parameters registration.
for high frequency (VT1) and low frequency (VT2) sensors

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 2019 International Siberian Conference on Control and Communications (SIBCON)
Fig.5 presents the stage "calibration": the linearly
increasing voltage is formed at DAC-output of the
microcontroller STM32 and comes to transistors base of
sensor.
Fig.5 – Schematic diagram for sensor at stage "calibration"
Transistor is opened by DAC output voltage. When the
value of this voltage gets previously determined level
(for example, 100 mV or 1.0 V for emitter current properly
1.0 mA or 10 mA) the device fixes the voltage value at
DAC-output, measures the sensor base voltage, calculates
sensors gain factor (H21) and indicates its value. Each of the
sensors is connected separately at the stage of “calibration”
for the parameters measurements.
At the stage of “measurements” the code signals are
formed at ADC-inputs ADC#1 to ADC#4, each of them
corresponds to voltage value at resistor load of Sensor#1 to
Sensor#4. Afterwards, gain factor (H21) for each of sensor
is calculated. The result of calculation of sensors value of
H21 is indicated on the LED display.
VI. THE PROPOSED DEVICE ARCHITECTURE
The developed device for neutron fluence effective value
registration is based on 32-bit microcontroller
STM32F407VGT6 with core ARM Cortex-M4F, consisting
of:
– 12-bit DAC;
– 212-bit ADC, which can be expand to 16 channel;
– interface for parallel data output on the indicator;
– open source hardware and software.
The proposed architecture STM32 allows organizing the
process of multichannel sensors parameter measurements
with ±1.0 mV precision, primary information processing and
indicating the measurement results.
For software development we used STM32Cube [11, 12]
(“STMicroelectronics”). The library STM32Cube HAL
consists of in-line software HAL-abstraction for STM32,
providing the maximum of code translation inside STM32
series. The set of built-in software components (RTOS,
USB, FatFS, TCP/IP, Graphics) was configured for their
combined action.
We have developed the driver program for
microcontroller STM32, that realizes the algorithm
described previously. The program was debugged and the
microcontroller was programmed for sensor prototype.
VII. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
The device prototype was applied during the tests of
sensors irradiation under fields of two types of neutron
sources (RISI and IPPE, Russia).
The set of 8 sensors was pre-irradiated at the stage of
"calibration" at reference source BARS-4 (RISI). The
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measurement results of gain factor 21 for each of
transistor were used for further calculation of parameters N
and  (for values of emitter current equal to 1.0 and
10.0 mA before and after irradiation).
Then we repeated the irradiation of four sensors of the set
at the same neutron fluence and measured the gain factor
21 for each of the sensor. The deviation of the calculated
neutron fluencies values from the standard detectors
registrations is less than 10%.
The remaining set of four sensors was placed in source
FS-1M (IPPE), the spectral-energy characteristics of the
neutron radiation of which differ significantly from
reference reactor. Comparing the results of the irradiation,
we see the differences between the neutron fluence of more
than 0.1 MeV energy (that were obtained from the results of
"on-line" measurements of the gain factor H21E for each of
the four sensors) and standard detectors registrations is less
than 10%.
Thus, we used two algorithms variants for device
realization --- a different one for calibration and
measurement, each of them was implemented as a separate
program stored in the microcontroller before testing.
In this research we demonstrated the approbation of new
engineering solution of developed device for tests results
processing using up-to-date hardware and software platform.
VIII. CONCLUSION
The engineering solution of bipolar transistor application
as sensors for “on-line” neutron fluence registration is
described. This method is focused on neutron fluence
damage effect correlation for various sources to reference
source.
The proposed method is based on application of pre-
irradiated bipolar transistors as neutron fluence sensors and
SMT32 device as a self-contained unit.
The developed device prototype was used in radiation
tests for two types of neutron sources (RISI and IPPE,
Russia). Comparing the results of the irradiation, the
deviation of the neutron fluencies of more than 0.1 MeV
energy from the standard detectors registrations
was less than 10%.
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