The nucleus

For nearly a decade, the December issue of the Transactions on Nuclear Science has contained selected papers from the IEEE Annual Conference on Nuclear and Space Radiation Effects. Considered collectively, these December issues probably constitute the most important source of documented technical information for workers in the field of applied radiation effects. Papers presented at this year´s conference are indicative of the broad range of technical interests found in the radiation effects community. Papers in Session 1 are concerned with the basic mechanisms of interactions between radiation and solid materials. Such phenomena are examined for technologically important insulators and semiconductors. One feature of this first session is a series of papers dealing with the basic aspects of radiationinduced effects in materials employed a s gate insulators in MOS transistors. Related papers on MOS devices are contained in Session 3. A topic dealt with in several Session 3 papers is the effects of ionizing radiation on CMOS/SOS structures. Session 2 contains papers describing radiation effects on a variety of devices, ranging from silicon transistors to fiber optic waveguides.