Characterization of Degraded Very-High-Energy Heavy-Ion Beams Using the HEARTS LET Booster

Very-high-energy (VHE) heavy ions are particularly relevant for single event effects (SEE) testing due to their unique combination of high linear energy transfer (LET) and substantial penetration depth in electronic components, removing the need for vacuum testing and component delidding. The HEARTS project addresses the growing demand for these types of beams by leveraging the CERN accelerator complex and its use of heavy ions for physics studies and adapting it to radiation testing of electronics. To this end, a detailed characterisation of primary and degraded very-high-energy heavy ion beams has been performed at CERN, using a combination of silicon diode energy measurements and Monte Carlo simulations, to demonstrate their suitability for SEE testing.