Novel Techniques for the Monitoring of Space-Bourne Radiation Damage and its Evolution in Silicon Devices for Future Missions

The understanding of radiation damage and its effects on imaging sensors is an important part of space instrumentation design and is of critical interest to organisations such as ESA and NASA in planning the scientific capabilities of the next generation of space missions.
Generally, when performing an irradiation of a silicon device (e.g. Charge Coupled Devices (CCDs) or Active Pixel Sensors (APSs)), the device is left unbiased or with a minimum of the device powered to provide basic bias to the device, for convenience. However, when a device is biased and imaging during irradiation, it is possible to see live radiation damage as it is formed by the incident particle's interaction as it hits the device, and the behaviour of the damage in the seconds and minutes after it is caused as the crystal lattice moves into a stable configuration.