Modern Electronics (was Re: List charter mods & headcount...

From: Peter C. Wallace <pcw_at_mesanet.com>
Date: Tue Jun 22 20:43:02 2004

On Tue, 22 Jun 2004, Tony Duell wrote:

> > > (I suspect) much of a valve's rad-hardening is due to sheer size,
> >
> > It is.
>
> I am not convinced. I remember reading that the tiny field-emission
> vavles etched into a silicon chip (which, BTW, are smaller than the mean
> free path of an electron in air at stmospheric pressure so they don't
> need to be evacuated) are considerably more radiation hard than
> conventional transistors on the same chip.
>
> -tony
>

I'm not convinced either...

I think the problem with semiconductors is that the radiation ionizes (creates
carrier pairs) in the semiconductor, in a vacuum tube, there is nothing to
ionize (though photo-electric currents are possible)


Peter Wallace
Received on Tue Jun 22 2004 - 20:43:02 BST