Research progress in proton radiation detection technology

Background Electronic devices and systems applied in space and nuclear fields are facing severe threats from proton radiation effects. Accurate detection of radiation environment parameters is an essential prerequisite for conducting research on radiation effects, assessing device damage, and implementing radiation hardening technologies.

Purpose This study is intended to summarize the main technologies and research progress of proton radiation detection at home and abroad, explore the application potential of CMOS image sensors in this field, and provide a reference for the development of efficient and accurate proton radiation detection technologies.

Methods First, the detection principles and technical characteristics of three main types of proton radiation detectors (gas detectors, scintillation detectors, and semiconductor detectors) were comprehensively investigated and summarized. Then, an irradiation experiment was carried out on a CMOS image sensor using 10 MeV protons, and the variation of its sensitive parameters under different proton irradiation fluences was tested and analyzed.

Results The experimental results show that CMOS image sensors are highly sensitive to proton radiation. Among all sensitive parameters, the dark signal exhibits the best linear response to proton fluence, with a linear error of less than 8% in the range of 0～2×10¹¹ p/cm².

Conclusions CMOS image sensors have good application prospects in the field of proton radiation detection due to their high sensitivity to proton radiation and the excellent linear response of dark signal to proton fluence.