On the amorphization of Si and WO3 by particle impact

Abstract Estimates of the depth of bombardment-induced amorphization (Ra ) are presently available for seven different ions injected into Si (Ar, As, B, Ne, P, Sb and Si) as well as for Kr injected into WO3. These depths can be interpreted in terms of recent damage-distribution theories to yield Fd (Ra ), the initial displacement fraction at depth Ra. (Here the term 'initial' means 'present before thermal and athermal annealing'.) The resulting values of Fd (Ra ) were found to be reasonably constant, such that, depending on which theory was used, they had an average of either 0.7 ±0.2 or 0.4 ±0.2 for Si and either 0.09 ±0.03 or 0.17 ±0.06 for WO3. This approximate constancy is considered to be particularly significant with Si, since the data used encompassed incident masses from 11 to 122, incident energies from 10 to 280 keV, and doses from 3 × 1014 to 1 × 1014 ions/cm2. It is concluded, in view of the constancy of Fd (Ra ), that the amorphization of si and WO3 can be self-consistently explained by homogeneous damage accumulation. An alternative category of explanation, based on the random impingement of discrete disordered regions of volume Va is, however, not excluded; in fact, it is argued that the constancy demonstrated here for Fd (Ra ) is also compatible with discrete disordered regions provided Va is proportional to the incident energy E.