Amorphous-Phase Formation and Structure in Semiconductor Substrates following Swift Heavy-Ion Irradiation

Semiconductors can be rendered amorphous by ion irradiation, through either elastic or inelastic ion/substrate interactions. While the former are well characterized and exploited in device fabrication, the latter have only recently been reported. None-the-less, novel nanostructures using the latent tracks that result from inelastic interactions have already come to market. For this project, we propose an innovative methodology to study the crystalline-to-amorphous phase transformation and amorphous-phase structure resulting from inelastic interactions between swift heavy ions and elemental and binary semiconductor substrates. We seek a fundamental scientific understanding to enable an effective technological application.