High energy Xe+ ion beam induced rippled patterns on silicon

Under certain conditions ion beam bombardment on semiconductor surfaces leads to well-defined morphological structures in the nanoscale range caused by a self-organization process. Due to the ion impact as a start the surface-adjacent layer is amorphized before a periodical wave-like rippled structure on the surface as well as at the amorphous-crystalline interface is developed. So far we found that the ripple wavelength linearly scales with the ion energy in a range of 5 to 70 keV (50 to 300 nm). Furthermore, we try to evaluate the ripple patterns from the point of homogeneity and uniformity. Therefore, we defined a quality factor for the amplitude and a correlation length for the wavelength to characterize the structures over a larger scale. We used a routine to extract the ripple amplitude from the Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) images. In order to determine the correlation length we prosecuted Grazing Incidence Small Angle X-Ray Scattering (GISAXS) measurements.
Also, we asked for the mechanisms behind the formation of ripples. The investigation of the amorphous-crystalline interface gives a first hint. The subsurface structure has been identified by both Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) and Rutherford backscattering (RBS). Applying two different ion types for the formation of rippled patterns we could identify clear differences in the structure of the amorphous layer.