FUNDAMENTAL ROLE OF CREATION AND ACTIVATION IN RADIATION-INDUCED DEFECT PRODUCTION IN HIGH-PURITY AMORPHOUS SIO2

A model for the radiation-induced production of defects in amorphous i nsulators is proposed. It is shown that an irreversible creation of de fects from network sites follows power law kinetics, and a reversible activation of precursor sites follows Kohlrausch kinetics. Electron sp in resonance was used to measure the concentration of x-ray induced E' centers in high-purity amorphous SiO2 over an extremely wide dose ran ge with high precision. The agreement between theoretical and experime ntal defect densities, over more than 4 orders of magnitude in dose, i s unprecedented.