Temperature and flux dependence of ion-beam mixing in crystalline and amorphous germanium isotope multilayers

The availability of highly enriched stable isotopes enables the preparation of isotopically controlled semiconductors. By means of crystalline (c-Ge) and preamorphized (a-Ge) germanium isotope multilayer structures we investigated the temperature and flux dependence of ion-beam induced self-atom mixing. Low,intermediate,and high temperature regions with different mixing behavior are identified after Ga implantation at 310 keV and various temperatures. In the first region (0K - 470K) the amount of mixing in c-Ge and a-Ge is very similar, an increasing mixing with increasing temperature is observed. Region 2 (470K - 540K) reveals a strong drop of mixing in c-Ge whereas the mixing in a-Ge still increases with temperature. In region 3 (570K and above) the mixing in a-Ge drops to the level of c-Ge. Within region 2 no significant structural change occurs during implantation suggesting an efficient annealing of the radiation damage. In addition we performed Focused-Ion-Beam (FIB) implantations with 60 keV Si ions into Ge using two different fluxes at two different temperatures. The experimental results indicate that the annealing of radiation damage is not only temperature but also flux dependent.
Molecular dynamics simulations with a Stillinger-Weber type potential are used to study the self-atom mixing observed in the experiment. It is found that the dominant mechanisms of mixing are thermal spikes formed by transferring kinetic energy of the incident ion to the lattice. If the transferred energy is high enough,locally molten regions are created in which the atoms can move more freely compared to the lattice atoms. With increasing temperature the thermal spikes last longer and the mixing increases. This is in accord with the experimentally observed mixing behavior in region 1. Differences between the mixing in a-Ge and c-Ge in region 2 are related to the initial crystal structure. Qualitative agreement is achieved with molecular dynamics simulations.