High-energy (>40 MeV) protons are commonly used to characterize radiation tolerance of space electronics against damage caused by energy transfer to the nuclei and electrons of semiconductor materials while in orbit. While practically useful, these experiments are unrepresentative in terms of particle type and energy spectra, which results in disproportionate amounts of displacement damage and total ionizing dose. We compare these damages to those realized by bulk semiconductors used in optoelectronics in common low, medium, and high Earth orbits by calculating the duration in orbit required to achieve equivalent nuclear and electronic energy deposition. We conduct this analysis as a function of test proton energy, material, material thickness, and shielding thickness. The ratio of nuclear to electronic orbit duration, a value which would approach unity in an ideal radiation tolerance test, is found to exceed unity in the majority of cases but approaches unity as Al shielding increases. This study provides a connection between damage produced in terrestrial accelerator-based characterizations and orbit irradiation in terms of both damage modes which can cause optoelectronic components to fail: displacement damage and total ionizing dose.

中文翻译：

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地球辐射耐受实验的轨道等效性

高能 (>40 MeV) 质子通常用于表征空间电子设备的辐射耐受性，以防止能量转移到在轨时半导体材料的原子核和电子造成的损坏。虽然实际有用，但这些实验在粒子类型和能谱方面不具有代表性，这会导致不成比例的位移损伤和总电离剂量。我们通过计算实现等效核能和电子能量沉积所需的在轨持续时间，将这些损害与在普通低、中和高地球轨道中用于光电的体半导体所造成的损害进行比较。我们将这种分析作为测试质子能量、材料、材料厚度和屏蔽厚度的函数进行。核与电子轨道持续时间之比，发现在理想的辐射容限测试中接近统一的值在大多数情况下超过统一，但随着铝屏蔽的增加接近统一。这项研究提供了在基于地面加速器的表征中产生的损伤与轨道辐射之间的联系，这两种损伤模式都可能导致光电元件失效：位移损伤和总电离剂量。