Temperature dependence of ion-beam mixing in crystalline and amorphous germanium isotope multilayer structures

Self-atom mixing induced by 310 keV gallium (Ga) ion implantation in crystalline and preamorphized germanium (Ge) at temperatures between 164 K and 623 K and a dose of 1 × 1015 cm−2 is investigated using isotopic multilayer structures of alternating 70Ge and natGe layers grown by molecular beam epitaxy. The distribution of the implanted Ga atoms and the ion-beam induced depth-dependent self-atom mixing was determined by means of secondary ion mass spectrometry. Three different temperature regimes of self-atom mixing, i.e., low-, intermediate-, and high-temperature regimes are observed. At temperatures up to 423 K, the mixing is independent of the initial structure, whereas at 523 K, the intermixing of the preamorphized Ge structure is about twice as high as that of crystalline Ge. At 623 K, the intermixing of the initially amorphous Ge structure is strongly reduced and approaches the mixing of the crystalline material. The temperature dependence of ion-beam mixing is described by competitive amorphization and recrystallization processes