Effects of High Electric Fields on the Magnitudes of Current Steps Produced by Single Particle Displacement Damage

Measurements of single particle displacement damage are presented as discrete increases in reverse-biased diode leakage current, or current steps, caused by individual heavy ions in252Cf-irradiated JFET diodes. The maximum size of measured current steps agrees with calculations obtained from the expression for Shockley-Read-Hall generation when the radiation-induced defect density is derived from Monte Carlo simulations of atomic displacements and the electric field enhancement of defect emission is taken into account. The distribution of the current steps shows good agreement with experimental data.