Speaker
Description
Compact electron sources based on laser-plasma accelerators have garnered significant interest within the microelectronics R&D community for the development of radiation-hardened designs. A tightly focused electron bunch can thereby serve as a surrogate for discrete radiation events, enabling the characterization of device malfunctions and damage thresholds in radiation-intense environments, such as those encountered in avionics. As an emerging modality, electron-based single-event testing offers the potential to complement state-of-the-art ion facilities by providing extended penetration depths and the unique capability to locally address sensitive nodes within increasingly complex, multi-layered microelectronic architectures.
In this contribution, we present a conceptual design for an LPA-driven electron beamline optimized for single-event testing, where sub-micron focal spots and precise charge tunability are paramount. Drawing on comprehensive simulations, we detail the optimization of electron bunch delivery to the device under test. A central feature of this design is a novel, aperture-based, jitter-insensitive charge control methodology that enables bunch charge tunability over four orders of magnitude—entirely decoupled from LPA operation. This approach provides a versatile platform for probing a vast spectrum of potential radiation events with high spatial and temporal fidelity.
This work was supported by the Director, Office of Science, Office of High Energy Physics, of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) under the ASSERT Program, grant number HR001124C0411.
| Working group | WG6 |
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