Irradiation Studies of TGC Electronics Components for the ATLAS Experiment at High-Luminosity LHC

TL;DR

This study assesses the radiation tolerance of commercial electronics components for the ATLAS experiment's TGC frontend electronics at HL-LHC, confirming their suitability under expected high-radiation conditions.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive radiation tolerance evaluation of various COTS components for HL-LHC TGC electronics, ensuring their reliability in high-radiation environments.

Findings

All tested components meet TID and NIEL requirements.

COTS components are viable for HL-LHC TGC electronics.

Radiation tests confirm component durability under expected conditions.

Abstract

This paper evaluates the radiation tolerance of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) electronics components for use in the Thin Gap Chamber (TGC) frontend electronics of the ATLAS experiment at the High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC). The ATLAS experiment has accumulated more than 450 fb^-1 of data as of 2025. Its luminosity upgrade, the HL-LHC scheduled to begin operation in 2030, will deliver 3000-4000 fb^-1 over ten years and lead to substantially higher radiation levels in detector electronics. The radiation levels for the TGC frontend electronics are estimated to be 4.1-7.3 Gy in terms of Total Ionizing Dose (TID) and 1.1-2.2 x 10^11 n_1MeV cm^-2 in terms of Non-Ionizing Energy Loss (NIEL). To evaluate component suitability under these conditions, TID tests were conducted using Cobalt-60 gamma rays at Nagoya University, and NIEL tests were performed with the Tandem Accelerator at Kobe University. Various COTS components, including SFP+ optical transceivers, clock jitter cleaners, optical fibers, voltage references, operational amplifiers, analog-to-digital converters, digital-to-analog converters, SD cards, flash memories, and low-dropout regulators, were tested and evaluated against the required radiation levels. The results demonstrate that all evaluated components meet the TID and NIEL tolerance requirements for application in the TGC frontend electronics at the HL-LHC.