Effects of irradiation damage on the back-scattering of electrons: silicon-implanted silicon

Radiation damage in an (initially crystalline) silicon wafer was generated by microbeam implantation with 600 keV Si⁺ ions (fluence 5 x 10¹⁴ ions/cm²). To produce micro-areas with different degrees of damage, 14 implantations at different temperatures (between 23 and 225 °C) were done. The structural state of irradiated areas was characterized using Raman spectroscopy and electron back-scatter diffraction. All irradiated areas showed strong structural damage in surficial regions (estimated depth <1 μm), and at implant substrate temperatures of below 130 °C, the treatment has caused complete amorphization. Back-scattered electron (BSE) images exhibited that observed BSE intensities correlate with the degree of irradiation damage; all irradiated areas were higher in BSE than the surrounding host. Because there were no variations in the chemical composition and, with that, no Z contrast in our sample, this observation again supports the hypothesis that structural radiation damage may strongly affect BSE images of solids.