Atomistic simulation of Er irradiation induced defects in GaN nanowires

Classical molecular dynamics simulation was used to irradiate a GaN nanowire with rear-earth erbium (Er). Ten cumulative irradiations were done using an ion energy of 37.5 keV on a 10 × 10 nm2 surface area which corresponds to a fluence of 1 × 1013 cm−2. We studied the location and types of defects produced in the irradiation. Er implantation leads to a net positive (expansion) strain in the nanowire and especially at the top region a clear expansion has been observed in the lateral and axial directions. The lattice expansion is due to the hydrostatic strain imposed by a large number of radiation induced defects at the top of the NW. Due to the large surface-to-volume ratio, most of the defects were concentrated at the surface region, which suggests that the experimentally observed yellow luminescence (YL) in ion implanted GaN NWs arises from surface defects. We observed big clusters of point defects and vacancy clusters which are correlated with stable lattice strain and the YL band, respectively.