A transmittivity study of the influence of ion dose and annealing temperature in SiO2 glass implanted with Cu

Cu ions were implanted into the surface of SiO2 glass with ion number of 1 x 1016, 3 x 1016, 5 x 1016, 10 x 1016/cm2. The implanted samples had obvious increase of optical absorption in the 190 nm to 900 nm wavelength region, an absorption peak near 570 nm could be observed when the ion number was equal or larger than 5 x 1016/cm2, and the magnitude of the peak increased as increasing of the ion dose. After thermal annealing, the optical absorption of the four samples all increased, and the absorption peak shifted to the longer wavelength, the absorption peak also appeared in the sample implanted with 3 x 1016/cm2. The existence of absorption peak indicated that there were Cu nanocrystals formed within the sample, and the increase of the plasma resonance was due to the new nuclei's presence and the growth of the Cu nanocrystals during annealing