Analysis of Si⁺-implanted Nd:YVO₄ crystal: the relation between lattice damage and waveguide formation

Abstract

We report the lattice damage and annealing properties of the 500 keV Si+ ions implanted Nd:YVO4 crystal with different doses. The Rutherford backscattering spectrometry/channeling technique was used to analyze the damage profiles of ion-implanted samples. A series of post-implant annealing was performed at temperatures from 250 °C to 400 °C to investigate the relation between lattice damage profile and the waveguide formation. Implantations at doses of more than 5×10(14) ions/cm2 can result in high damage ratio in the near-surface region and the lattice structure cannot be restored even after annealing at 400 °C. Such seriously damaged lattice is relatively stable and contributes to the waveguide structure. Convergence of the refractive index at the surface region after ion implantation is believed mainly due to the elastic collisions with the target atoms caused by nuclear energy loss.

Refractive index profile in ion-implanted neodymium-doped yttrium vanadate waveguide: the relation between index change and lattice damage

“…To verify the theoretical estimations in Eqs. 14 It is found that implantation with the lowest dose causes only slight lattice damage, with the average damage ratio around 10% in the waveguide region, while implantations with higher doses result in significant damage throughout the whole implanted region. Figure 1(a) shows the damage ratio profiles measured from the RBS/C spectra of the 500 keV Si þ -ion-implanted YVO 4 crystals with implant doses of 1 × 10 14 , 5 × 10 14 , and 2 × 10 15 ions∕ cm 2 , respectively.…”