Ion Beam Diagnosis of Crystalline Materials

Debjit Kar1, Dr. V. N. Kulkarni1

1
Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur

We have investigated ion-beam-induced defects and then thermal-annealing effects in low influence Ge
ion implanted quartz using absorption spectrum analysis and photoluminescence (PL). Quartz (SiO 2 )
substrate was irradiated with 560 KeV Ge + ions at the room temperature with the fluences of 2.5 1015
cm-2 . It was found out to be the ion implantation has created defects in the quartz sample by PL and
absorption spectra. But after annealing at 1073 K for 1 h, it was found that the defects were annealed out.
This was investigated by the PL. The intensity of the PL spectra has revealed to be dependent on the
annealing temperature and duration. The results are explained on the basis of current theories.

Ge nanocrystals have attracted much attention in
the last years due to their peculiar applications.
They have proven to be promising candidates for
the development of new light emitting diodes
[1], flash memories [1,2], photovoltaic cells [3]
and biological labeling probes [4,5]. More
recently, the influence of the annealing
parameters on the PL emission has been
investigated and it has been demonstrated that
the annealing temperature changes the PL
intensity strongly. The investigation of
structures consisting of Ge nanocrystals (Ge
NCs) has mostly devoted to improve their
quantum efficiency for photoluminescence (PL)
as well to understand their light absorption and
emission processes. Although the exact
mechanism for light emission remains
controversial, nowadays it is well established
that basically the emission energy is dependent
on either the NCs size or radiative processes at
the Ge NCs/matrix interface. Ge NCs embedded
in SiO2 matrix have been extensively studied as
a function of the implantation fluence, annealing
temperature and annealing time. Transmission
electron microscopy analyses (TEM) of the hot
implanted samples have revealed that the NCs
size distribution was broader with a larger mean
size as compared to RT implantations. It is
considered that ion fluence is one of the
important parameters for the damage recovery
process of the solid phase crystallization. In the
present study, we synthesized amorphous layers
by Ge ion implantation into single crystalline Si
substrates with Ge ion fluences, and examined
the defects removal process on post-annealing
using photoluminescence (PL).
We did the Ge ion implantation on quartz
for the first time in our laboratory. The facility
we have used in our laboratory mainly was the
1.7 MV Tandetron accelerator. This accelerator
is made by High Voltage Engineering Europa
(HVEV), which is a high current Tandem
accelerator. The terminal voltage is in the range
of 100 KV-1.7MV, generated by solid-state
parallel fed Cockroft-Walton type voltage
generator, with high voltage stability 30V and
low terminal voltage ripple of 20 V pp . Also the
low voltage 100 KV allows implantation, which
is not easily possible for belt type Tandem
accelerator. The H-ions have been generated by
the duoplasmatron ion source model 358. The
maximum current available for H + and He+ are
25 μA and 2 μA respectively. It has another ion
source HVEE MODEL 860C Sputter Ion Source
which has ion source with reloadable cesium
reservoir and spare removable target holder. The
RBS and channeling chamber have been set at
450 exit angle by the switching magnet. The
implantation was done in the RBS chamber. In
the RBS chamber the sample holder is fixed
from the top in such way that the beam fall
perpendicularly on the sample or the target. Five
to six samples can be put into the sample holder
at the same time, as the sample holder can move
vertically RBS can be done for different sample
by just moving the holder vertically. Again
before the chamber a slit has been introduced to
reduce the beam area as desired (minimum 0.5
mm). An aluminum grid (suppressor) has been
introduced just before the sample holder and a
negative 300 V is applied to it to suppress the
secondary electron emitted from the sample due
to the primary ion-beam. Again a wire is
connected to the sample holder to measure the
beam current falling on the sample. Before
doing the implantation we did the simulation
using SRIM to check how much energy is
required and what would be the depth profile
after implantation of Ge on quartz. The
simulation was done using the following
parameters- ion energy 560 KeV and SiO 2
density 2.19 gm/cm3 .
Figure 1
Figure 2
So from the above figures it can be seen that the
average ion range is 4205 Å. Next we have
implanted the Ge ions on quartz. For this we
used a copper sample holder in which
germanium was crushed very well inside it. The
target voltage was 10 KeV and the extraction
voltage was 30 KeV. At the 90o switching
magnet we selected 74 Ge- ion before the
accelerator. The accelerator terminal voltage
was set as 260 KeV. So the total energy of the
ions is 560 KeV. So after the accelerator the ions
become positive due to the N 2 gas (88% of the
cylinder pressure). The sample current was 170
nA with the suppressor voltage -300 V. The spot
size of the beam on the quartz sample was
1cm 1cm in beam scan mode. The fluence of
2.5 1015 /cm2 was achieved after 6 hr
irradiation of Ge on quartz. Then the absorption
spectrum was taken for this sample with Perkin
Elmer Spectrophotometer which has the range
from 300 nm -3300 nm. Also we took
absorption spectra for pure quartz.
Photoluminescence spectra were also taken for
this sample and for pure quartz with a 405 nm
Laser. Then we annealed the Ge irradiated
sample at 1073 K for 1 h in open air
environment. We again took the PL for this
sample also. Below the plots for absorption
spectra and PL spectra were shown-
 From the above PL spectra we can say that the
0.075
implanted Ge + ions have created defects in the
quartz and that’s why a peak at 560 nm was
0.070
coming (red line) where it is not observed in the
Ge doped case of pure/undoped quartz (black line). After
0.065
not doped
annealing the defects are annealed out, as the
absorption coefficient

0.060
peak height gets lower in this case (green line).
0.055 Before the experiment we were expecting that
0.050 the Ge ion will form the Ge nanocrystal inside
the quartz and due to annealing its size will be
0.045
changed and also its peak position. But in the
0.040 earlier report the fluence was generally in the
0.035 order of 1017 [6], but in our experiment we can
0.030
only achieved 2.5 1015 ions. So for this low
influence the nanocrystals were not formed
300 350 400 450 500 550 600
rather these are producing the defects.
wavelength in nm
We are really thankful to Dr. S.
Dhamodaran, Dr. Nobin Banerji for helping us
Figure 3: Absorption spectra for doped to the ion implantation in Ion Beam Complex.
(black line) and undoped (red line) We are also thankful to Mr. Surajit Sarkar for
helping us in taking the absorption spectra.

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Appl. Phys. Lett. 88 (2006) 071916.
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Chem. Mater. 17 (2005) 4858.
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A.P. Alivisatos, Science 281 (1998) 2013.
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2016.
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59.

Figure 4: PL spectra for different samples