Irradiation
ISIS offers facilities for rapid testing of high energy neutron effects in electronics
Cosmic rays hitting the earth’s atmosphere generate showers of particles including high energy neutrons that rain down on earth. These cosmic ray neutrons can seriously disrupt the normal operation of electronic systems, creating problems ranging from altering the device’s operation, disrupting its memory to permanently damaging the electronics.
The main irradiation instrument at ISIS, ChipIr, provides a high intensity beam of fast-neutrons that closely matches the natural ‘atmospheric’ neutron spectrum allowing accelerated testing of the disruptive effects of the neutrons in electronics – called ‘single event effects’. It provides a spectrum of neutrons that extends up to an energy of 800 MeV, variable collimated small and large area beam, and also incorporates many other features to help users of the ChipIr to perform test measurements accurately and efficiently.
In addition to ChipIr, ISIS has two compact fast-neutron sources (NILE) and thermal neutron irradiation capability available for users for both electronic testing and wider irradiation studies.
