Electrical Modeling

With the elimination of underground nuclear testing and declining defense budgets, science-based stockpile stewardship requires increased reliance on high performance modeling and simulation of weapon systems. Electrical systems and components are major elements in today’s weapon systems. The present electrical modeling and simulation capabilities are very limited and will be significantly expanded by using massively parallel computational resources. Our vision is to accurately characterize nuclear weapon electrical systems from first principles in all environments over a 50-year lifetime.

The Electrical Modeling capability in CCIM also includes theory and modeling of materials physics issues: semiconductor physics with particular emphasis on the effects of radiation induced damage on performance; electrical breakdown in dielectrics. Radiation effects are characterized using theory and a hierarchical multiscale computational approach. Results from quantum electronic structure calculations (DFT) are combined with a continuum theory calculation of radiation-induced defects in oxides and device level drift-diffusion calculations to provide insights and data for constructing a radiation-aware, lumped element “SPICE” model suitable for use circuit simulators such as Xyce, Chile Spice, and P-Spice. A general theory of electrical breakdown that we are developing is based on a breakthrough discovery of a system that exhibits reversible electrical breakdown, namely the Photoconductive Semiconductor Switch, and the theoretical explanation we developed of this phenomenon.

Areas of Research:

• Charon (Home Page - internal, Sandia only)
  (Contact: Robert Hoekstra)
• Electrical Breakdown of Dielectrics
  (Contact: Harold Hjalmarson)
• Neutron Effects in Electronics
  (Contact: Harold Hjalmarson)
• Photoconductive Semiconductor Switch, Theory
  (Contact: Harold Hjalmarson)
• Radiation Effects in Semiconductors
  (Contact: Harold Hjalmarson)
• REO – Radiation Effects in Oxides
  (Contact: Harold Hjalmarson)
• Xyce
  (Contact: Eric R. Keiter)

Program Contacts: Scott A. Hutchinson and John B. Aidun

 
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