Self-Organized Compound Semiconductor Patterning by Polyatomic Ion Irradiation

Irradiation of solids by heavy polyatomic ions (e.g Au2, Bi3) can cause localized melting at the ion impact point due to the enhanced energy density in the collision cascade of a polyatomic ion impact [1]. Former studies demonstrated the formation of high aspect ratio, hexagonal dot patterns on Ge, Si and GaAs after high fluence, normal incidence irradiation choosing a suited combination of energy density deposition (i.e. poly- or monatomic ions) and substrate temperature, which facilitated transient melting of the ion collision cascade volume [2-5].
This study underscores the universality of this ion impact-melting-induced, self-organized pattern formation mechanism probing the compound semiconductors InSb and GaSb under polyatomic Au ion irradiation with various irradiation conditions.
Calculations of the needed melting energies per atom (Emelt) for different materials show, that among others InSb and GaSb are preferring candidates for a successful surface patterning by mon- and polyatomic heavy ions.
HRSEM, AFM and EDX analysis of irradiated surfaces reveal that for compound semiconductors, additional superstructures are evolving on top of the regular semiconductor dot patterns, indicating superposition of a second dominant driving force for pattern self-organization.
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[2] L. Bischoff et al., Nucl. Instr. Meth. Phys. Res. B 272 (2012) 198.
[3] R. Böttger et al., J. Vac. Sci Technol. B 30 (2012) 06FF12.
[4] R. Böttger et al., Phys. Stat. Sol. RRL 7 (2013) 501.
[5] L. Bischoff et al., Appl. Surf. Sci. 310 (2014) 154.