We study structural disorder in GaN bombarded at room temperature with 1.3 keV amu−1 PFn (n = 0, 2 and 4) cluster ions. Results are compared with our previous studies of irradiation with atomic ions of different masses. An algorithm for cascade density calculations that take into account the formation of subcascades is presented. Quantitative analysis of both new and previous data shows that an increase in the cascade density above a certain critical value results in a rapid increase in the rate of planar amorphization and the rate of damage buildup in the crystal bulk. Both such rates increase with decreasing sample temperature. This threshold-like behaviour suggests an important role of nonlinear energy spikes in the formation of stable implantation disorder in GaN. We also discuss the striking difference between cascade density effects in damage buildup in different semiconductors, including GaN, ZnO and Si.

We study structural disorder in ZnO bombarded at room temperature with 1.3 keV∕amu atomic P and cluster PFn (n=2 and 4) ions. Rutherford backscattering/channeling spectrometry results show that the density of collision cascades has a negligible effect on the damage buildup in the crystal bulk in the dose range resulting in ∼1.5−15 displacements per atom. Hence, the amount of stable post-implantation disorder in the bulk can be predicted based on ballistic calculations. In contrast, the cascade density affects radiation damage in the near-surface region. An intermediate defect peak between the expected surface and bulk peaks of disorder forms for ion irradiation conditions with dense cascades.

The effects of irradiation by F, P, and PF4 on optical properties of GaN were studied experimentally and by atomistic simulations. Additionally, the effect of Ag was studied by simulation. The irradiation energy was 0.6 keV/amu for all projectiles. The measured photoluminescence (PL) decay time was found to be decreasing faster when irradiation was done by molecular ion compared to light ion irradiation. The PL decay time change is connected with the types of defect produced by different projectiles. Simulation results show that the light ions mainly produce isolated point defects while molecular and heavy ions produce clusters of point defects. The total amount of defects produced by the PF4 projectile was found to be very close to the sum of all defects produced in five individual cascades started by one P and four F single ions. This and the similar depth profiles of damage produced by molecular and light ion irradiations suggest that the defect clusters are one of the important reasons for fast PL decay. Moreover, the simulations of irradiation by Ag ions, whose mass is close to the mass of the PF4 molecule, showed that the produced defects are clustering in even bigger conglomerates compared to PF4 case. The latter has a tendency to split in the pre-surface region, reducing on average the density of the collision cascade.

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