The diffusion of Cu, Ag and Au has been measured in implanted, amorphous Si, over the range 150–600° C. The diffusion coefficients are characterized by Arrhenius relationships with activation energies for Cu, Ag and Au of 1.25, 1.6 and 1.4 eV respectively. The solubility of Au in amorphous Si was measured to be 6 orders of magnitude greater than crystalline Si at a temperature of 515°C. The Cu, Ag and Au are segregated ahead of the moving amorphous-crystalline interface. The presence of Au can increase the velocity of the interface.

The microstructures produced by electron-beam melting and by ion-beam mixing Al/Mn and Al/Mn/Si layers on Si substrates are examined. The treatments were found to incorporate Si from the substrate into the surface alloy. Several phases formed, depending on treatment, including α- and β-AlMnSi, μ-AlMn (epitaxial on Si{111}), and amorphous and icosahedral AlMnSi. The observed microstructures relate the novel icosahedral phase to other phases and elucidate its formation kinetics. Diffraction patterns from large icosahedral grains (up to 5 μm) show distortions in the position and shape of weak (but not strong) reflections, as predicted for phason defects in a quasicrystalline lattice, one of the structures proposed for icosahedral phases.

The Al-Zr system was investigated in an effort to form quasicrystals. While no quasicrystals were found, a metastable phase previously formed only by annealing of a metastable solid solution was observed. This phase was formed by thermal annealing or by elevated temperature ion irradiations of thin film specimens. This work is the first observation of ion irradiation induced formation of this metastable phase.

The fluence dependence of Kr precipitation in Ni at room temperature has been studied with the aid of Transmission Electron Microscopy. As in other metals, the Kr precipitates in small cavities. Electron diffraction demonstrates that the Kr precipitates are solid, fcc crystals aligned with each other and the Ni lattice. The trends are similar to those observed for Kr precipitation in Al at room temperature. The average Kr lattice parameter, determined from the electron diffraction, increases with increasing Kr fluence from 0.515 nm to an asymptotic value of 0.545 nm. The asymptotic limit is due to the melting of the larger Kr precipitates. The mismatch between the Kr and Ni lattices is as large as 55%. Diffuse electron scattering was observed from large, liquid Kr precipitaes. This occurs for Kr fluences above 5.1020 Kr+ m-2 in Ni and above 2.5.1020 Kr+ m-2 in Al. At room temperature, the largest solid Kr precipitate observed in dark field images was 8.3 nm in diameter compared to 4.7 nm in Al. The larger precipitates are liquid or gas. The solid Kr metals at the same lattice parameter in both Ni and Al suggesting that the melting is thermodynamic in nature and independent of the host material.

Results of a TEM investigation of the microstructural changes produced by the room temperature implantation of energetic Kr+ ions into a glassy Ti-Cr thin film are reported. As in other metals, the Kr precipitates as solid crystallites. The precipitation of crystalline Kr is accompanied by ultrafine crystallization of the metal host around each Kr crystal. With increasing fluence, the Kr precipitates grow to a critical size at which they melt, and the adjacent fine metal crystals disappear. A new TEM imaging technique is described briefly which utilizes the small angle electron scattering fine structure and which in principle is capable of revealing all fine particles simultaneously.

Ion implantation damage and annealing results are presented for a number of crystalline oxides. In A12 O3, the amorphous phase produced by ion bombardment of the pure material first crystallizes in the (crystalline) γ phase. This is followed by the transformation of γ-Al2 O3 to α-A12O3 at a well defined interface. The activation energy for the growth of α alumina from γ is 3.6 eV/atom. In CaTiO3, the implantation-induced amorphous phase transforms to the crystalline phase by solid-phase epitaxy (SPE). ZnO is observed to remain crystalline even after high implantation doses at liquid nitrogen temperatures. The near surface of KTaO3 is transformed to a polycrystalline state after implantation at room temperature or liquid nitrogen temperature.

Mg ion-implantation of A12O3 wafers followed by air annealing at high temperatures was investigated as a way to provide bulk doped samples for studies of Mg surface segregation and its effect on surface mass transport. SIMS was used to analyse Mg concentrations in implanted and unimplanted near-surface regions and in the bulk. It was found that the concentration of Mg decreases dramatically with depth from both surfaces of an annealed wafer and is also observed in the bulk. These observations are attributed to bulk diffusion of the Mg combined with equilibrium surface segregation. Surface mass transport associated with the (1120) surface of an A12 O3 single crystal wafer doped and equilibrated by such a method was studied by the grating decay method; the Mg doped sample showed a decay rate in air higher than that in the undoped wafer by a factor of ∼ 2.4 at 1500°C.

Damage in single crystal ß-SiC(100) as a result of ion bombardment has been studied using Rutherford backscattering (RBS) and cross-section transmission electron microscopy (X-TEM). Samples were implanted with 123 keV 27Al at liquid nitrogen temperature. RBS spectra for He channeling in the (110) axis at 45° were obtained as a function of implantation dose to determine damage accumulation. X-TEM was used to characterize damage structure for selected doses. The surface of the SiC becomes amorphous for doses greater than 1 x 1015 /cm 2. At lower doses, significant uniaxial lattice strain along the (100) direction is suggested by comparison of RBS channeling spectra obtained for several high index axes. High resolution TEM on a sample implanted at 4 x 1014 /cm2 shows no damage structure in the surface region; lattice damage in a broad layer centered roughly at the depth of highest energy deposition is characterized by small amorphous pockets in a crystalline matrix. Qualitatively similar backscattering results were obtained for other elements implanted at room and liquid nitrogen temperature.

We report the transient enhanced diffusion of supersaturated phosphorus in ion-implanted SPE grown Si. Precipitation proceeds rapidly to a metastable SiP phase, which can be converted to an orthorhombic form or redissolved by subsequent heat treatment. The effects are strongly temperature dependent, and consistent with the trapped interstitial model. The behavior of different dopants follows their relative interstitialcy diffusion coefficients. The results suggest that ion implantation induced point defects dominate over thermally activated point defects during low temperature and certain rapid thermal processing, controlling dopant deactivation and diffusion in crystalline or amorphous silicon, and can also affect the SPE growth rate.

The amorphous-crystalline (with residual defects) transition is studied in several III-V binary semiconductors and a ternary alloy. Regrowth shows the same behaviour in all cases. The growth kinetics are thermally activated and the activation energies have been measured using time resolved reflectivity measurements. Correlation with vacancy migration characteristic energy is discussed. In the particular case of GaAs, high resolution electron micrograph of the growth front are displayed. They show a rough microscopic structures together with larger scale smooth deformations, attributed to diffusion instabilities.

Double doping of Si by ion implantation of both group V and group III dopants was studied. For the case of Sb as the group V dopant, both Sb and B could be maintained in solution after high temperature heat treatment at concentrations greatly exceeding their solubility limits. With Sb implantation alone, Sb diffusion takes place with a highly enhanced transient diffusion, followed by nucleation of self interstitials into loops at the projected range. In certain double-doped samples this projected range damage was eliminated. In the under-compensated B-Sb case, evidence of stable Sb-B pairs was obtained.

The roles of energetic displacement cascades are ubiquitous in the fields of radiation damage and ion beam modifications of materials. These roles can be described on two time scales. For the first, which lasts ≈ 10-11 s, small cascade volumes are characterized by large supersaturations of point defects, structural disorder, and energy densities in excess of some tenths of eV's per atom. During this period, the system can be driven far from equilibrium with significant rearrangement of target atoms and the production of Frenkel pairs. Experimental studies of ion beam mixing in conjunction with molecular dynamics computer simulations, have contributed largely toward understanding these dynamic cascade processes. At later times, the microstructure of the material evolves as cascades begin to overlap, or at elevated temperatures, point defects migrate away from their nascent cascades. It will be shown how the primary state of damage in cascades influences this microstructural development. Examples involving radiation-enhanced diffusion and ion-induced amorphization will be discussed.

Calculations of the angular distributions of scattered ions were used to simulate impact collision ion scattering spectrometry (ICISS) experiments. The calculations were performed first for 2–keV Na+ ions incident on the Pt(111) surface in the <112> azimuth. The fitting of these calculations to the experimental data provided information about the surface structure of the sample and the trajectories of the incident ions. The inclusion of a first-order decay model for Auger neutralization with the calculations for Na+ allowed the simulation of 2-keV Ne+ ions in the ICISS mode on the same Pt surface. From these simulations it was possible to extract the Auger neutralization halflife for Ne+, found to be 1.30 ± 0.10 femtoseconds.

The phenomenological model of ion mixing based on the concept of a thermal spike and chemically biased diffusion is further developed. Experimental results available to date are compared with the model.

The critical dose required to amorphize the crystalline compound CuTi during irradiation with 1 MeV electrons has been investigated from 10 to 288 K. The results show that above a critical temperature (Tc) of about 185 K, CuTi remains crystalline and only defect clusters are formed. Below Tc, amorphization occurs with no observable cluster formation. The critical dose for amorphization was found to be temperature dependent below Tc: as the irradiation temperature increases, a higher dose is required to induce amorphization. This observation supports the concept that Tc corresponds to the vacancy migration temperature. Below Tc, interstitial migration may contribute to the observed reduction in the amorphization rate with increasing temperature.

We present evidence in this study that the moving species under ion mixing conditions are affected by the implantation damage distribution in the sample. This observation holds for metal-semiconductor, metal-metal and semiconductorsemiconductor systems. The direction of thermal annealing and atomic transport appears to play a role in ion-mixing as well. When these two factors are in the same direction, only one dominant moving species is observed. When these two factors are in opposite directions, both constituents can contribute to the atomic transport in ion mixing.

Ion mixing of thin markers in Zr was investigated by irradiating with 660 keV Kr++ ions at temperatures between 300 to 423 K. Very thin films of vacuum evaporated Ti, Cr, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu+ Hf, W, and Au served as markers. The samples were analyzed by 2 MeV He backscattering spectrometry. The marker elements that are likely to dissolve interstitially in Zr have higher mixing efficiencies at elevated irradiation temperature than the markers that are likely to dissolve substitutionally. The results are explained by radiation-enhanced diffusion theory.

Ion beam mixing experiments of Ti-Si layers have been performed with Kr ions of 250 keV energy and doses ranging from 7 1015 to 7 1016 cm-2 at temperatures between liquid nitrogen temperature and 450°C. At substrate temperatures below 120°C no silicide formation could be detected. Only weak mixing at the Ti-Si interface is observed. At temperatures above 120°C the formation of TiSi2 could be verified by Rutherford backscattering and X-ray diffractometry. Layers of TiSi2 produced by ion beam mixing show smooth surfaces in contrast to those prepared by conventional furnace annealing. Those display rough surfaces and interfaces.

Multiple interaction computer simulations have been used to determine the properties of collision cascades in liquid In targets induced by normally incident 5 keV Ar+ ions. Below the first atomic layer the cascade becomes Thompson-like relatively quickly. However, within the first atomic layer the angular distribution of moving atoms became forward peaked by 150 fs and remained so until,∼300 fs. Energy and angle resolved (EARN) spectra were calculated for the ejected atoms. The peak of the energy distribution shifted to lower energies at larger ejection angles, and the angular distributions became broader for lower energy particles. Both results agree with recent experimental data, and with a simple model proposed bg Garrison. Our results suggest that the detailed structure of the surface layer is very important in the sputtering process.

The chemical disordering model for the electron irradiation induced crystalline to amorphous (C-A) transition was previously developed using in-situ experiments in the intermetallic compounds of the Cu-Ti binary alloy system. In the context of this model, a rule was developed which predicts the amorphisation tendency of these and other binary intertransition metal compounds with an accuracy of 92% in the 38 compounds studied to date. Two aspects of this rule, the composition of the compound and the crystal structure are examined through a first approximation computer comparison of ordered, partially ordered, and disordered crystal structures. It is found that in bcc based compounds and in complex crystal structure compounds, the ability of the chemical disordering to raise the energy of the crystal is severely inhibited at compound compositions away from 50:50. During the disordering process, the greatest increase of the crystal energy occurs during the early stages of chemical disordering. These results mesh well with the concept of an amorphous transition driven by the energy increase due to chemical disordering.