Publication: Energy dependence of the ripple wavelength for ion-beam sputtering of silicon: experiments and theory
Loading...
Identifiers
Publication date
2012-08-05
Defense date
Advisors
Tutors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
American Institute of Physics
Impact
Export
Abstract
In spite of the efforts devoted for the last 20 years to elucidating ion-beam sputtering (IBS) as an instance of
surface self-organization, the classic view on the main mechanism inducing the morphological instability has been
recently challenged. We report on the verification of a recent theoretical description of this nanopattern formation
process for semiconducting targets, as driven by stress-induced, viscous flow of a thin amorphous layer that develops at
the surface [M. Cuerno and R. Cuerno, Appl. Surf. Sci. 258, 4171 (2012)]. Through experiments on silicon as a
representative case, we study the dependence of the ripple wavelength with the average ion energy, finding a linear
dependence in the 0.3-1 keV range. This is explained within the viscous flow framework, taking into account the energy
dependence of the number of displaced atoms generated by collision cascades in the amorphous layer, as predicted by
previous models of ion-generated stress. For our analysis, we provide a systematic criterion to guarantee actual linear
dynamics behavior, not affected by the onset of nonlinear effects that may influence the value of the ripple wavelength.
Description
This proceeding at: 22nd International Conference on the Application of Accelerators in Research and Industry (CAARI), took place 2012-Auguts, 05-10, in Fort Worth (Texas).
Keywords
Nanoscale pattern formation, Ion-beam sputtering, Ripples, Viscous flow, Surfaces, Morphological instabilities, Hydrodynamic models.
Bibliographic citation
AIP Conference Proceedings 1525 (2013) 380, pp. 380-385.