Simulated research on displacement damage of gallium nitride radiated by different neutron sources

Abstract

Gallium nitride (GaN), one of the third-generation wide-bandgap semiconductors, offers significant application for advanced electronic devices utilized in neutron irradiation environments, like the defense, space, and aerospace, etc. In these applications, neutron irradiation-induced defects affect the properties of GaN and eventually degrade the performance of devices. In this work, neutron transport process in GaN is simulated by using the Monte Carlo-based code, Geant4 toolkit under four different irradiation conditions, e.g. high flux isotope reactor, high temperature gas-cooled reactor, pressurized water reactor, and atmospheric neutron irradiation. The energy spectra of primary knock-on atoms (PKA) in GaN and the corresponding weighted spectra under those irradiation conditions are analyzed. It is found that there is one unusual “peak” at around 0.58 MeV in the Primary recoil spectrum, regardless of the irradiation conditions. This peak is attributed to the neutron reaction of hydrogen nucleus, i.e., (n, p). Because of the remarkable (n,p) reaction cross-section of low-energy neutron, the intensity of this peak is related to the ratio of low-energy neutron to the total neutron spectrum. By comparing these PKA energy spectra in GaN, we can see that the PKA energy spectrum created under atmospheric neutron irradiation is similar to that in the high flux isotopic reactor. Specifically, the energy distribution of PKA is wide, and the magnitude of energy is lower than those under fission neutron irradiation conditions. In combination with the effects of nuclear reaction products on electrical properties, the high flux isotopic reactor is more suitable for simulating the irradiation of GaN in an atmospheric neutron energy spectrum environment. These above results can provide not only some insights into the evaluation of the degradation of GaN-based electronic devices under neutron irradiation, but also dataset for the study of radiation damage effect of GaN in simulated neutron environment.