Advanced development of the Spectrum Sciences Model 5005-TF, single event test fixture

A commercial application of particle identification methods commonly used in high-energy physics research has been developed for single-event testing of microelectronics. The Model 5005-TF single event test fixture can be used to substantially reduce the parts qualification testing costs for many space satellite systems. The 5005-TF includes a californium source, photomultiplier tubes, ultra thin film scintillation detectors, mountings, a vacuum chamber and related controls, and electronics for processing time-of-flight (TOF) signals. Tests were conducted to examine how well the TOF parameter identified the fission fragment (atomic number, mass, kinetic energy). For the lighter fragments, the TOF parameter has a maximum error of about 30 atomic mass units, which is inadequate for particle identification. Since light output of thin-film scintillators was known to correlate with average velocity of a fission fragment passing through the scintillator, it was decided to use the light output in conjunction with TOF to improve particle identification. This dual-parameter method was implemented in the 5005-TF and test results show favorable comparison with results from an ion beam facility.