  The acronym IBIC (Ion Beam Induced Charge) was coined in early 1990's to
indicate a scanning microscopy technique which uses MeV ion beams as probes to
image the basic electronic properties of semiconductor materials and devices.
Since then, IBIC has become a widespread analytical technique to characterize
materials for electronics or for radiation detection, as testified by more than
200 papers published so far in peer-reviewed journals. Its success stems from
the valuable information IBIC can provide on charge transport phenomena
occurring in finished devices, not easily obtainable by other analytical
techniques. However, IBIC analysis requires a robust theoretical background to
correctly interpret experimental data. In order to illustrate the importance of
using a rigorous mathematical formalism, we present in this paper a benchmark
IBIC experiment aimed to test the validity of the interpretative model based on
the Gunn's theorem and to provide an example of the analytical capability of
IBIC to characterize semiconductor devices.
