RESPONSE OF SUPERCONDUCTING MATERIALS AND ELECTRONICS TO TRANSIENT RADIATION

AN EXPERIMENT IS PROPOSED TO DEMONSTRATE THAT TRANSIENT X-RAY RADIATION FROM THE PHYSICS INTERNATIONAL PULSERAD 1150 FLASH X-RAY MACHINE WILL CAUSE A REPRESENTATIVE HIGH TEMPERATURE SUPERCONDUCTING (HTS) DEVICE TO MALFUNCTION BY REVERTING TO NORMAL CONDUCTIVITY. INTEREST IN THIS PHENOMENON IS MOTIVATED BY THE ANTICIPATED INCORPORATION OF HTS THIN FILM TECHNOLOGY IN DEFENSE ELECTRONICS, ESPECIALLY SATELLITES, IN THE NEAR-FUTURE. THE ELECTRONICS WILL BE VULNERABLE (I.E., RADIATION SOFT) TO SPACE RADIATION OR A NUCLEAR WEAPON RADIATION ENVIRONMENT. POTENTIALLY DAMAGING TRANSIENT VOLTAGES WILL OCCUR WHEN THE HTS MATERIAL GOES NORMAL. PERMANENT DAMAGE MAY ALSO RESULT. THE DEVICE CHOSEN HERE IS A LOW-Q MICROWAVE RESONATOR MANUFACTURED BY WESTINGHOUSE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY CENTER AND CONSISTING OF YBCO DEPOSITED ON A MGO SUBSTRATE. ALTHOUGH HIGH-Q HTS RESONATORS ARE AVAILABLE, A LOW-Q RESONATOR WILL RESPOND IN A TIME SHORT COMPARED TO THE 50 NS X-RAY PULSE. THE S(12) PARAMETER WILL BE MEASURED AS A FUNCTION OF FREQUENCY WITH A SYNTHESIZER, S-PARAMETER TEST SET, AND NETWORK ANALYZER. A WIDEBAND OSCILLOSCOPE WILL BE EMPLOYED TO MEASURE RESPONSE AS A FUNCTION OF TIME. THE Q AND DEVICE RESISTANCE WILL BE OBTAINED AS A FUNCTION OF TIME, DOSE, AND DOSE RATE.