Displacement damage of the space broad-spectrum proton in semiconductor materials

Displacement damage induced by high-energy protons in the space radiation environment presents a serious risk to the reliability of spacecraft materials and onboard electronics. Nevertheless, the studies of displacement damage induced by space-based broad-spectrum protons are still limited. In this paper, the nonionizing energy loss (NIEL) of space broad-spectrum protons at different orbital altitude in semiconductor materials is investigated by using Geant4 Monte Carlo simulations. We find that the NIEL of the silicon (Si) and gallium arsenide (GaAs) increases first and then decreases with the orbital altitude, and the shielding effects can lead to the saturation or continuous increase of NIEL under different shielding layer thickness. A fast NIEL calculation method for arbitrary broad spectra is proposed based on statistical probability principles and effective protons proportion. Meanwhile, a more uniform spatial distribution of mean damage energy per source particle ( T dam ) deposition from broad-spectrum protons is achieved by increasing shielding layer thickness and decreasing orbital altitude. Notably, the relative contribution of displacement damage caused by nuclear reaction is negatively correlated with the increase of orbital altitude and shielding layer thickness. The results provide a quantitative reference for the space displacement damage of semiconductor materials.