Investigation and Reduction of Component Failure Caused by Pulse Power Waveform Fine Structure

Pulse power (LINAC) waveform fine structure can cause premature railspan collapse. This issue is especially relevant to THAAD and TMD, because of planned use of commercial, sub micron and deep sub-micron technologies. LINAC fine structure has beenoccasionally studied but there is no reliable, stable, and commercially available detector that is fast enough to characterize it. Nu-Trek, JAYCOR, Idaho Linear Accelerator, Fisk University and University of Rochester are proposing to develop an ultra-fastdetector (GaAs PCD, <10 ps response time), use it to characterize LINAC fine structure, and develop both a computational and experimental understanding of the impact of the fine structure on device performance. Test protocols resulting from this work willresult in (1) Reduced low-level dose rate upset and rail span collapse and (2) Reduced test margin. JAYCOR will use its working knowledge of THAAD and TMD to select system critical devices for modeling and testing. GaAs PCDs are in great demand as adetector for pulsed radiation sources. Fast GaAs substrates are used in optical switching and high purity GaAs is being considered for medical imaging. The GaAs PCDs, which at the end of Phase II will have < 10 ps time response, are in great demand asdetectors for pulsed radiation sources, fast GaAs substrates are used in optical switching, and high purity GaAs is being considered for medical imaging.