Abstract
Currently, there is no good way to determine the influence of radiation on the aging of betavoltaic electrical contacts. This work tested a method to accelerate the aging of the contacts inside a betavoltaic by enhancing energy deposition within the interfacial region of interest. An electrical contact of gold-titanium on gallium nitride was aged by exposure to tritium beta particles and electrons in a beamline. The interface stoichiometry was compared to the electrical performance of the contact. The method to age the betavoltaic component could help predict the lifetime performance of the internal electrical contacts and provide assurance of deployment reliability.
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Notes
BNC stands for Bayonet Neill-Concelman. ConFlat® is a registered trademark of the Varian Corporation. NPT stands for National Pipe Taper. VCR® is a registered trademark of the Swagelok Company.
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Acknowledgments
This research was conducted under the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, a multiprogram national laboratory operated by Battelle for the U.S. Department of Energy. The authors gratefully thank the Environmental Molecular Science Laboratory (EMSL), a DOE Office of Science User Facility for characterization access, computational time, and expertise. Specifically, the authors thank Dr. Scott Lea for his coordination efforts. This manuscript has been authored by Mission Support and Test Services LLC under Contract No. DE-NA0003624 with the U.S. Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others do so, for United States Government purposes.
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Hubbard, L., Fuller, E., Allred, J. et al. Accelerated beta radiation aging of interlayer titanium nitride in gallium nitride contacts. MRS Communications 12, 24–29 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1557/s43579-021-00092-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1557/s43579-021-00092-2