Tin implanted in rutile single crystals: disorder, lattice location and the influence of the analyzing He-beam

Sn ions of 300 keV were implanted into <0 0 1> TiO2 single crystals (rutile) at room-temperature. The lattice disorder and the lattice site location was determined by Rutherford Backscattering and Channeling (RBS-C). Successive increase of the implanted Sn dose from 5x1014 Sn+/cm2 to 3x1015 Sn+/cm2, followed by angular scan measurements at each dose leads to a strong increase of the dechanneling component over the whole depth range. This effect was studied in detail and could be attributed to the analyzing He-beam. Prolonged irradiation with the He-beam causes strain and blistering of the irradiated spot. Sn is fully substitutional on Ti lattice sites and its lattice site location is not affected by the analyzing beam. Annealing studies of a sample with a mixture of He-beam and implantation damage revealed a sharp recovery stage between 900 and 1000 K. Such a stage was not observed for samples partially damaged with a similar Sn dose. Partially damaged rutile reveals complete annealing by columnar regrowth in a temperature region between 800 and 1000 K