PONE-D-22-11567Development of a method for calculating effective displacement damage doses in semiconductors and applications to space fieldPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Iwamoto,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

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First of all congratulations to a very good written manuscript and sorry for the delay. I did my best to find reviewers after I have taken over the manuscript.There are some points raised by reviewer 2 which i would like you to point on:"Please define the term “defect production efficiency” in the introduction.Explain in clearer terms the difference between DDD and DDDeff. Deficiencies in the literature overview"Please consider to provide good, explanatory answers in the manuscript to support the understanding for future readers  

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Reviewers' comments:

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Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The manuscript is very well written and presents a new development towards incorporating damage efficiencies into calculating DDD using fundamental understanding of existing damage models. Hence this work should be accepted in PLOS One. There are three comments i have for the authors and it would be nice if they could clarify these.

1. Damage efficiencies are dependent on crystallographic directions in single crystals since planer density of atoms along different crystallographic directions is different. We know that all semiconductors used in space tech are single crystals and hence would this be an important factor to consider in for example MD calculations. Something codes like DLPOLY and GULP are able to do while calculating Ed values for different materials.

2. Do some of the amorphization models consider single and double impact models developed by Gibbons, Ion Implantation in Semiconductors-Part I and Part II in Proceedings of IEEE 56 (1968) 295 and 60 (1972) 1062.

3. SiO2 is amorphous and i was wondering how do the authors define damage in an amorphous matrix to then quantify damage efficiency.

Reviewer #2: PONE-D-22-11567

Revision

Please define the term “defect production efficiency” in the introduction.

Explain in clearer terms the difference between DDD and DDDeff.

The introduction mentions the motivation of the work being evaluation of radiation damage semiconductors in space conditions, but the own irradiation environment of the space is not mentioned or defined. Challenges in materials science with respect to the application of materials in space are also not commented. Are the authors aware about recent developments in this area? Some references (non-exhaustive):

https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.202002397

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-018-0184-4

Lines 74-75: Confusing, please rewrite.

Please define T in lines 85-86.

Please define NIELconv in line 111.

Between lines 135 and 142, it has been said that NIEL is proportional to the number of defects produced by irradiation. Then the authors mention that this is not the case due to formation of amorphous pockets in semiconductors which are similar to defect production in metals. This is all confusing. Firstly, metals do not amorphize under irradiation (normally); I do not see such a correlation though. Secondly, NIEL is a parameter for nuclear collisions (i.e. non-ionizing). The creation of amorphous pockets in semiconductors within the nuclear regime is directly associated with the overlapping of damage cascades in the nuclear regime (see Gibbons model in his classical paper https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/1450784). I suggest rewriting this whole paragraph to streamline the ideas.

Corrections have been suggested based on MD simulations. However, how accurate are these MD simulations to allow such corrections in defect production efficiency?

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Development of a method for calculating effective displacement damage doses in semiconductors and applications to space field

PONE-D-22-11567R1

Dear Dr. Iwamoto,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Bruno Merk

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Congratulations, well done!

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #2: No

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #2: Comments have appropriately addressed. Revised paper can be now accepted. All the questions have been answered fully.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #2: No

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