MONTE-CARLO SIMULATION OF POSSIBLE CONVERSION PROCESSES WITH RESPECT TO SOFT ERROR GENERATION IN A DYNAMIC RAM BASED NEUTRON DETECTOR

The operating principle of a memory based radiation sensor, which is t he Soft Error mechanism in silicon integrated circuits was suggested i n our research with particular reference to dynamic Random Access Memo ries (dRAMs), with a view of employing it in neutron detection, imagin g and elemental analysis. Thus, having initially proved that dRAMs can be used as heavy charged particle detectors, it was thought that thes e devices can be made sensitive to neutrons by adding a foil to conver t the thermal neutrons to charged particles through the (n,alpha) reac tion. In order to further evaluate the feasibility of this approach, a Monte Carlo program has been used to simulate and examine suitable co nverting materials with respect to soft error generation and to determ ine methods to increase the sensitivity of dRAMs to neutrons. The aim of this paper is to present results from these calculations and discus s the capabilities of such a neutron detector.