Temperature dependence of electrical characteristics on pn junction power diodes irradiated by X-ray

The purpose of this work is to study the effect of X-ray irradiation on pn junction power diode. The diodes were designed and fabricated using standard CMOS technology. Irradiation with exposure energy of 70 keV and various exposure times (5, 55, and 205 seconds) were applied on the diodes. The temperature dependence of the current-voltage (I-V) characteristics of the diodes was measured in the temperature range of 303K-393K. The effect on forward and reverse current can be explained through the following parameters such as saturation current (I o), series resistance (R s), and ideality factor (n). After irradiation the forward current was approximately three orders of magnitude higher than non-X-ray samples of all temperature conditions. This caused by the decreasing of the total series resistance. The increase in the values of I o with increasing temperature was observed. The value of n is essentially the same, close to 1, before X-ray and after X-ray of all temperature range of 303K-393K. © 2012 IEEE.