Radiation Effects in Electronics

Radiation environments – including background radiation and radiation sources that we encounter as part of our every day lives – can have unforeseen (and sometimes profound) impacts on electronic devices like phones and computers. In considering how we want these devices to operate and persist in these environments, we must consider the effects of radiation.

Check out the resources below to learn more about radiation effects in electronics:

• New York Public Radio’s Radiolab podcast “Bit Flip“

• “The Universe Is Hostile to Computers” (Veritasium/Youtube)

• “The World’s Largest Cyclotron” (Linus Tech Tips/Youtube) 

• “Your Cell Phone Vs. the Universe” (A TRIUMF Saturday Morning Lecture on the topic of radiation effects on microelectronics/Youtube): 

• Cosmic Ray Failures of Power Semiconductor Devices (IEEE Spectrum)

• The story of the Telstar satellite (Medium)

• A primer on particle accelerators (Symmetry Magazine)

• Build-your-own cosmic ray detector (Symmetry Magazine): 

• Solar storms and their effects:

  • This article in Scientific American

  • This article in NASA

• NOAA’s Space weather real-time info and forecast

Click to expand and download the high-resolution version; visit TRIUMF’s Radiation Environments page for an interactive version.