Applications of junction compensation techniques in reducing transient gamma radiation effects in transistor circuits

Any transistor exposed to transient gamma radiation will produce a large transient photocurrent output pulse unless the circuit is hardened or protected against this effect. The hardening technique described in this paper consists of adding a reverse-biased junction between the collector and the base of a transistor, producing a photocurrent which cancels or compensates for the radiation-induced current. Both computer and experimental results show a significant hardening achieved by this method which is applicable to microcircuit systems as well as to discrete component systems.