Effect of defect accumulation on ion-beam damage morphology by electronic excitation in lithium niobate: A MonteCarlo approach

We present a MonteCarlo approach to the non-radiative exciton-decay model recently proposed to describe ion-beam damage in LiNbO3 produced in the electronic excitation regime. It takes into account the statistical (random) spatial distribution of ion impacts on the crystal surface. The MonteCarlo approach is necessary to simulate the evolution of the damage morphology with irradiation fluence from the single track regime to the overlapping track regime. A detailed comparison between the morphologies found for sub-threshold and above threshold irradiations is presented. Moreover, a good representation of the Avrami’s type kinetics for amorphization has been achieved and it is in fair accordance with experiment. For moderate fluences where homogeneous amorphous layers are generated, the new approach predicts that the amorphous and crystalline layers are separated by a diffuse (thick) boundary that includes a mixed amorphous-crystalline composition.

[1]  M. Bianconi,et al.  Kinetics of ion-beam damage in lithium niobate , 2007 .

[2]  Kevin S. Jones,et al.  Ion implantation technology , 1993 .

[3]  Fernando Agulló-Rueda,et al.  Buried amorphous layers by electronic excitation in ion-beam irradiated lithium niobate: Structure and kinetics , 2007 .

[4]  Marcel Toulemonde,et al.  Transient thermal processes in heavy ion irradiation of crystalline inorganic insulators , 2000 .

[5]  Fernando Agulló-Rueda,et al.  Effect of local rotations on the optical response of LiNbO3: Application to ion-beam damage , 2006 .

[6]  J. Ziegler,et al.  stopping and range of ions in solids , 1985 .

[7]  C. R. A. Catlow,et al.  Point Defects in Materials , 1988 .

[8]  J. Loubet,et al.  Surface modifications of LiNbO3 single crystals induced by swift heavy ions , 1996 .

[9]  M. Bianconi,et al.  Assessment of swift-ion damage by RBS/C: Determination of the amorphization threshold , 2009 .

[10]  C. Schnohr,et al.  Comparison of the atomic structure of InP amorphized by electronic or nuclear ion energy-loss processes , 2008 .

[11]  Fernando Agulló-Rueda,et al.  Giant enhancement of material damage associated to electronic excitation during ion irradiation: The case of LiNbO3 , 2009 .

[12]  F. Studer,et al.  Experimental determination of track cross-section in Gd3Ga5O12 and comparison to the inelastic thermal spike model applied to several materials , 2005 .

[13]  Szenes Ion-velocity-dependent track formation in yttrium iron garnet: A thermal-spike analysis. , 1995, Physical review. B, Condensed matter.

[14]  Robert Katz,et al.  The radial distribution of dose around the path of a heavy ion in liquid water , 1986 .

[15]  M. H. Battey,et al.  Book Review: Nuclear tracks in solids: Principles and applications. R. L. FLEISCHER, P.B. PRICE and R.M. WALKER. University of California Press, 1975, 629 pp., $31.50 , 1976 .

[16]  G. García,et al.  Ion-beam damage and non-radiative exciton decay in LiNbO3 , 2008 .

[17]  Paolo Mazzoldi,et al.  Damage effects produced in the near-surface region of x-cut LiNbO3 by low dose, high energy implantation of nitrogen, oxygen, and fluorine ions , 2004 .

[18]  H. Fecht Defect-induced melting and solid-state amorphization , 1992, Nature.

[19]  Meftah,et al.  Swift heavy ions in magnetic insulators: A damage-cross-section velocity effect. , 1993, Physical review. B, Condensed matter.

[20]  Fernando Agulló-Rueda,et al.  Generation of amorphous surface layers in LiNbO3 by ion-beam irradiation: thresholding and boundary propagation , 2005 .

[21]  Noriaki Itoh,et al.  Subthreshold radiation-induced processes in the bulk and on surfaces and interfaces of solids , 1998 .

[22]  M. Rettenmayr,et al.  Swift heavy ion irradiation of InP : Thermal spike modeling of track formation , 2006 .

[23]  J. Aitchison,et al.  Fabrication of optical waveguides in KGW by swift heavy ion beam irradiation , 2006 .

[24]  G. Szenes Amorphous tracks in insulators induced by monoatomic and cluster ions , 1999 .

[25]  P. D. Townsend,et al.  Optical effects of ion implantation , 1987 .

[26]  K. Hjort,et al.  Heavy Ion beam-based nano-and micro-structuring of TiO2 single crystals using self-assembled masks , 2008 .

[27]  R. Jeraj Ion Beam Science: Solved and Unsolved Problems (Part I, II) , 2007 .

[28]  F. Agullo-lopez,et al.  Synergy between thermal spike and exciton decay mechanisms for ion damage and amorphization by electronic excitation , 2006 .

[29]  F. Agullo-lopez,et al.  Morphology of ion tracks and nanopores in LiNbO3 produced by swift-ion-beam irradiation , 2006 .

[30]  Noriaki Itoh,et al.  Materials modification by electronic excitation , 1998 .