Assessment of neutron- and proton-induced nuclear interaction and ionization models in Geant4 for Simulating single event effects

This paper examines the performance of the Geant4 radiation transport toolkit for the simulation of energy deposition from proton- and neutron-nuclear interactions in silicon microelectronics. The results show that for large (∼300 μm) to small (∼0.5 μm) feature-size devices, the nucleon-nuclear and electromagnetic interaction models within the toolkit provide energy deposition spectra and single event upset rate predictions that are in good agreement with experimental data. The new Binary Cascade and Classical Cascade models, together with the nuclear pre-equilibrium model in Geant4, do not significantly differ in the results they produce. For small feature-size devices, it is shown that it is necessary to consider the effects of ionization by particles produced by nuclear interactions several micrometers above the sensitive volume.