New Insulators Devices and Radiation Effects

Silicon technology today forms the basis of a world-wide, multi-billion dollar component industry. The reason for this expansion can be found not only in the physical properties of silicon but also in the unique properties of the silicon-silicon dioxide interface. However, silicon devices are still subject to undesired electrical phenomena called "e;instabilities"e;. These are due mostly to the imperfect nature of the insulators used, to the not-so-perfect silicon-insulator interface and to the generation of defects and ionization phenomena caused by radiation.The problem of instabilities is addressed in this volume, the third of this book series.Vol.3 updates and supplements the material presented in the previous two volumes, and devotes five chapters to the problems of radiation-matter and radiation-device interactions. The volume will aid circuit manufacturers and circuit users alike to relate unstable electrical parameters and characteristics to the presence of physical defects and impurities or to the radiation environment which caused them.