Study of Heavy Ion Fragmentation with the FLUKA Monte Carlo code

Heavy ion testing is critical for the study of Single Event Effects (SEEs) in electronic devices. In particular, high-Z ions generate SEEs via direct ionisation, due to their high LET (Linear Energy Transfer). These kind of tests for electronic components and systems are done at CHARM (CERN High Energy Accelerator Mixed-field) facility, in the context of the Radiation to Electronics (R2E) project. The baseline operation mode of CHARM is a 24 proton GeV beam from the Proton Synchrotron (PS) on a target, yielding a mixed and distributed radiation field that resembles the accelerator environment. Heavy ion beams are also used at CHARM, the top energy available for the Pb ions being around 5.5 - 6 GeV/n. In this case of heavy ion testing, the target is removed and the test devices are exposed directly to the beam. The CHIMERA (Charm High-energy Ions for Micro Electronics Reliability Assurance) project, which includes a collaboration contract between CERN and ESA (European Space Agency), aims at expanding the ion test capabilities at CHARM with the goal of lowering the beam energy in order to reach higher LET values.