SPACE RADIATION EFFECTS IN OPTOCOUPLERS

Abstract

Assessing the risk of using optocouplers in satellite applications offers challenges that incorporate those of commercial off-the-shelf devices compounded by hybrid module construction techniques. In this paper, we discuss these challenges with regard to radiation-induced effects, e.g., single event transients in the photodiodes and displacement damage effects in light emitting diodes. Radiation-induced effects can depend on several important variables including circuit application, radiation environment, annealing, temperature, and others. Despite the ominous list of test variables above, it is possible to make a conservative estimate of optocoupler performance in the space radiation environment. However, these predictions could result in an overestimation of on-orbit performance by an order of magnitude or more.