Surface blistering of ion irradiated SiC studied by grazing incidence electron microscopy

We present the structural analysis of surface blisters on SiC crystals heavily irradiated by He+ and H+ ions using grazing incidence electron microscopy and electron energy-loss spectroscopy. The shapes of the blisters were similar to those observed in silicon as the target, but the critical fluence and skin structure of the H-blisters were considerably different from those in silicon, while the He-blisters had features very similar to the case of silicon. The differences between silicon and SiC can be tentatively explained by the differences of binding energies of Si-Si, Si-C, Si-H and C-H