Distinct defect appearance in Gd implanted polar and nonpolar ZnO surfaces in connection to ion channeling effect
Abstract
(0001) c-plane, (11-20) a-plane, and m-plane (10-10) ZnO bulk crystals were implanted with 400-keV Gd+ ions using fluences of 5 x 10(14), 1 x 10(15), 2.5 x 10(15), and 5 x 10(15) cm(-2). Structural changes during the implantation and subsequent annealing were characterized by Rutherford back-scattering spectrometry in channeling mode (RBS-C); the angular dependence of the backscattered ions (angular scans) in c-, a-, and m-plane ZnO was realized to get insight into structural modification and dopant position in various crystallographic orientations.
X-ray diffraction (XRD) with mapping in reciprocal space was also used for introduced defect identification. Defect-accumulation depth profiles exhibited differences for c-, a-, and m-plane ZnO, with the a-plane showing significantly lower accumulated disorder in the deeper layer in Zn-sublattice, accompanied by the preservation of ion channeling phenomena in a-plane ZnO.
Enlargement of the main lattice parameter was evidenced, after the implantation, in all orientations. The highest was evidenced in a-plane ZnO.
The local compressive deformation was seen with XRD analysis in polar (c-plane) ZnO, and the tensile deformation was observed in nonpolar ZnO (a-plane and m-plane orientations) being in agreement with RBS-C results. Raman spectroscopy showed distinct structural modification in various ZnO orientations simultaneously with identification of the disordered structure in O-sublattice.
Nonpolar ZnO showed a significant increase in disorder in O-sublattice exhibited by E-2(high) disappearance and enhancement of A(1)(LO) and E-1(LO) phonons connected partially to oxygen vibrational modes. The lowering of the E-2(low) phonon mode and shift to the lower wavenumbers was observed in c-plane ZnO connected to Zn-sublattice disordering.
Such observations are in agreement with He ion channeling, showing channeling effect preservation with only slight Gd dopant position modification in a-plane ZnO and the more progressive diminishing of channels with subsequent Gd movement to random position with the growing ion fluence and after the annealing in c-plane and m-plane ZnO. Published by the AVS.