Calculations of the interactions of energetic ions with materials for protection of computer memory and biological systems

Theoretical calculations were performed for the propagation and interactions of particles having high atomic numbers and energy through diverse shield materials including polymeric materials and epoxy-bound lunar regolith by using transport codes for laboratory ion beams and the cosmic ray spectrum. Heavy ions fragment and lose energy upon interactions with shielding materials of specified elemental composition, density, and thickness. A fragmenting heavy iron ion produces hundreds of isotopes during nuclear reactions, which are treated in the solution of the transport problem used here. A reduced set of 80 isotopes is sufficient to represent the charge distribution, but a minimum of 122 isotopes is necessary for the mass distribution. These isotopes are adequate for ion beams with charges equal to or less than 26. To predict the single event upset (SEU) rate in electronic devices, the resultant linear energy transfer (LET) spectra from the transport code behind various materials are coupled with a measured SEU cross section versus LET curve. The SEU rate on static random access memory (SRAM) is shown as a function of shield thickness for various materials. For a given mass the most effective shields for SEU reduction are materials with high hydrogen density, such as polyethylene. The shield effectiveness for protection of biological systems is examined by using conventional quality factors to calculate the dose equivalents and also by using the probability of the neoplastic transformation of shielded C3H10T1/2 mouse cells. The attenuation of biological effects within the shield and body tissues depends on the materials properties. The results predict that hydrogenous materials are good candidates for high-performance shields. Two biological models were used. Quantitative results depended upon model.