Permanent Neutron Damage in PIN Microwave Diode Switches

The microwave PiN diode and its associated circuitry have been studied both experimentally and theoretically. The results of the study show that microwave PIN switches are very susceptible to permanent neutron damage. The failure mechanism is a severe reduction of conductivity modulation in the diode´s I region caused by a reduction of carrier lifetime. This loss of conductivity modulation not only causes a reduction of the isolation abilities of a microwave switch but is also shown to lead to other secondary failure modes which can be extremely important.