Analysis and testing of total ionizing dose effect on several
commercial optical transceivers via gamma-ray radiation
Yueying Zhan (展月英)
1,
*, Jianhua He (何建华)
1
, Fei Wang (王 斐)
2
,
and Liqian Wang (王立芊)
3
1
Key Laboratory of Space Utilization, Technology and Engineering Center for Space Utilization,
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100094, China
2
AVIC Hisense Photoelectric Technology Co., Ltd., Qingdao 266100, China
3
Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, IPOC, Beijing 100876, China
*Corresponding author: zhanyueying@csu.ac.cn
Received November 23, 2018; accepted January 25, 2019; posted online April 30, 2019
In our Letter, we selected several commercial optical transceivers, which consist of single-channel transceiver
modules, parallel transmitting and receiving modules, and Ethernet passive optical network (EPON) optical line
terminal (OLT) and optical network unit (ONU) modules, to do the total ionizing dose (TID) testing via the
gamma-ray radiation method. The changing of current and receiver sensitivity of optical transceivers is discussed
and analyzed. Based on the TID testing exposed to a TID of 50 krad (Si) at a dose rate of about 0.1 rad (Si)/s,
the performance of single-channel transceivers and parallel receiving modules has not changed after 50 krad (Si)
exposure, the parallel transmitting and EPON ONU modules have not worked after 40 krad (Si) and 47 krad (Si)
exposure, the EPON OLT module has bit error in the process of irradiation, and it can work well after annealing;
the reason for the error of OLT is analyzed. Finally, based on the theoretical analysis and testing results, this
Letter provides several design suggestions to improve the reliability for optical transceivers, which can be ref-
erenced by satellite system designation for various space missions.
OCIS codes: 230.2090, 350.5610, 060.4510, 000.2658.
doi: 10.3788/COL201917.052302.
Recently, demand for new higher bandwidth services,
higher transmission data rate, and superior reliability is
beginning to drive the deployment of optical communica-
tion technology in space information networks
[1–3]
. The
high-performance, high-data-rate, and low-cost optical
transceivers are being considered as a key device in space-
flight projects
[4–8]
. However, owing to the effect of galactic
cosmic rays, solar flares, and trapped particles in the earth
radiation belts, the optical transceiver is easily affected by
the effect of space radiation, for example, single-event ef-
fects (SEE), total ionizing dose (TID), and displacement
damage (DDD)
[9–12]
, especially for TID. The TID hazard
originates from the space environment and includes
contributions from charged particles (electrons, ions,
and secondary charged particles), neutrons that undergo
nuclear collisions to produce charged secondaries, and
primary photons from the environment and electron
bremsstrahlung
[13]
. However, many researches have
been focused on the effects and analysis of the TID
on complementary metal–oxide– semiconductor (CMOS),
metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) devices, optoelec-
tronic devices, and materials
[12–17]
. There is little research
on the radiation characteristics of optical transceivers.
The space radiation environment is the main factor that
causes the degradation and failure of optical transceivers.
The radiation environment mainly includes particle radi-
ation, photon radiation and the particles that cause the
total ionization damage. Ionization damage refers to the
excitation of high-energy charged particles or rays that
interact with atoms after they are incident on the semicon-
ductor material. For semiconductor materials, this
excitation causes electrons to transit from the valence
band to the conduction band, creating electron–hole
pairs. Electrons and holes can recombine or displace under
the action of the electric field or temperature. Relative to
electrons, the mobility of holes is small and easily cap-
tured. The trapping of holes increases the leakage current
and power consumption and degrades the performance
of the device
[18,19]
. Usually, ionizing radiation takes a few
forms: alpha, beta, and neutron particles and gamma
(γ) and X rays. As γ quanta have high energy (about
1 MeV), this results in high penetrating power and weak
dependence of the TID in active areas of the device under
test (DUT)
[20,21]
. Therefore, the γ ray and X ray are gen-
erally used to simulate the ionization effect on the ground.
Cobalt-60 is almost solely used as the γ radiation source
for industrial use now, mainly because of its easy produc-
tion method and its non-solubility in water
[22–24]
.
In this Letter, we selected several commercial optical
transceivers consisting of a single-channel transceiver,
parallel transmitter and receiver, and Ethernet passive
optical network (EPON) optical line terminal (OLT)
and optical network unit (ONU) modules, which are pro-
duced by Hisense Corporation, to do the TID testing via
γ-ray radiation, which is exposed to a total ionizing dose of
50 krad (Si) at a dose rate of about 0.1 rad (Si)/s. Further,
the performance of single-channel transceivers and paral-
lel receiving modules has not changed after 50 krad (Si)
COL 17(5), 052302(2019) CHINESE OPTICS LETTERS May 10, 2019
1671-7694/2019/052302(6) 052302-1 © 2019 Chinese Optics Letters