No abstract

Ion Beam Analysis (IBA) includes a group of techniques for the determination of elemental concentration depth profiles of thin film materials. Often the final results rely on simulations, fits, and calculations, made by dedicated codes written for specific techniques. Here we evaluate numerical codes dedicated to the analysis of Rutherford Backscattering Spectrometry (RBS), non-Rutherford Elastic Backscattering Spectrometry, Elastic Recoil Detection Analysis, and non-resonant Nuclear Reaction Analysis data. Several software packages have been presented and made available to the community. New codes regularly appear, and old codes continue to be used and occasionally updated and expanded. However, those codes have to date not been validated, or even compared to each other. Consequently, IBA practitioners use codes whose validity, correctness and accuracy have never been validated beyond the authors' efforts. In this work, we present the results of an IBA software intercomparison exercise, where seven different packages participated. These were DEPTH, GISA, DataFurnace (NDF), RBX, RUMP, SIMNRA (all analytical codes) and MCERD (a Monte Carlo code). In a first step, a series of simulations were defined, testing different capabilities of the codes, for fixed conditions. In a second step, a set of real experimental data were analysed. The main conclusion is that the codes perform well within the limits of their design, and that the largest differences in the results obtained are due to differences in the 3 fundamental databases used (stopping power and scattering cross section). In particular, spectra can be calculated including Rutherford cross-sections with screening, energy resolution convolutions including energy straggling, and pileup effects, with agreement between the codes available at the 0.1% level. This same agreement is also available for the non-RBS techniques. This agreement is not limited to calculation of spectra from particular structures with predetermined parameters, but also extends to extracting information from real data. In particular, we have shown data from an Sb implanted sample where the Sb fluence was certified with an uncertainty of 0.6%. For this sample, and using SRIM03 stopping powers for 1.5 MeV 4He in Si, the codes were able to extract the Sb fluence with an average 0.18% deviation from the certified value and a 0.11% agreement between the codes. Thus IBA is a suitable technique for accurate analysis where traceability is critical. These results confirm that available IBA software packages are, within their design limitations, consistent and reliable. The protocol established may be readily applied to validate future IBA software as well.

For the case of heavy ion elastic recoil detection (HI-ERD) the single scattering codes performed poorly for scattered particles, although recoiled particles were calculated correctly.

Accurate reference dielectric functions play an important role in the research and development of optical materials. Libraries of such data are required in many applications in which amorphous semiconductors are gaining increasing interest, such as in integrated optics, optoelectronics or photovoltaics. The preparation of materials of high optical quality in a reproducible way is crucial in device fabrication. In this work, amorphous Ge (a-Ge) was created in single-crystalline Ge by ion implantation. It was shown that high optical density is available when implanting low-mass Al ions using a dual-energy approach. The optical properties were measured by multiple angle of incidence spectroscopic ellipsometry identifying the Cody-Lorentz dispersion model as the most suitable, that was capable of describing the dielectric function by a few parameters in the wavelength range from 210 to 1690 nm. The results of the optical measurements were consistent with the high material quality revealed by complementary Rutherford backscattering spectrometry and cross-sectional electron microscopy measurements, including the agreement of the layer thickness within experimental uncertainty.

The influence of crystallographic orientation and ion fluence on the shape of damage distributions induced by 500keV N+ implantation at room temperature into 6H-SiC is investigated. The irradiation was performed at different tilt angles between 0° and 4° with respect to the ⟨0001⟩ crystallographic axis in order to consider the whole range of beam alignment from channeling to random conditions. The applied implantation fluence range was 2.5×1014–3×1015cm−2. A special analytical method, 3.55MeV He+4 ion backscattering analysis in combination with channeling technique (BS∕C), was employed to measure the disorder accumulation simultaneously in the Si and C sublattices of SiC with good depth resolution. For correct energy to depth conversion in the BS∕C spectra, the average electronic energy loss per analyzing He ion for the ⟨0001⟩ axial channeling direction was determined. It was found that the tilt angle of nitrogen implantation has strong influence on the shape of the induced disorder profiles. Significantly lower disorder was found for channeling than for random irradiation. Computer simulation of the measured BS∕C spectra showed the presence of a simple defect structure in weakly damaged samples and suggested the formation of a complex disorder state for higher disorder levels. Full-cascade atomistic computer simulation of the ion implantation process was performed to explain the differences in disorder accumulation on the Si and C sublattices. The damage buildup mechanism was interpreted with the direct-impact, defect-stimulated amorphization model in order to understand damage formation and to describe the composition of structural disorder versus the ion fluence and the implantation tilt angle.