Ion Beam Analysis of Amorphous and Nanocrystalline Group III-V Nitride and ZnO Thin Films

Abstract

The ion beam analysis (IBA) techniques of Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RBS), elastic recoil detection analysis (ERDA), nuclear reaction analysis (NRA), and particle-induced x-ray emission (PIXE) have been used to quantitatively determine composition, uniformity, impurity, and elemental depth profiles of major, minor, and trace elements of group III-V nitride and zinc oxide (ZnO) thin films prepared by various growth techniques. The IBA revealed that an amorphous GaN film prepared by ion beam assisted deposition (IBAD) has large variations in film thickness and composition coupled with typically 10-20% oxygen that was found to be essential to stabilize their amorphous structure. The IBA characterization of plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy (PAMBE) grown GaN, InN, and InCrN films revealed composition, impurity, and uniformity information of the films. The IBA of ZnO films prepared by radio frequency (RF) sputtering showed that the Zn/O ratio often varied significantly over the film thickness. Hydrogen was found to be a major impurity in the films with around one present in the as-deposited ZnO films. It is clearly shown that the nondestructive, quantitative, and rapid IBA measurements are very useful to develop and optimize growth protocols in respect to film thickness, stoichiometry, and especially in regard to hydrogen and oxygen impurities for group III-V nitride and ZnO thin films prepared by various growth techniques.

Hybrid nanostructured thin-films by PLD for enhanced field emission performance for radiation micro-nano dosimetry applications

“…As the enhancement in cross section over Rutherford cross section is about 120 times, this resonant scattering can be effectively utilized for profiling the coated C. For this purpose, α-particles of energy varying from 4.27 to 4.47 MeV were used for profiling of C. The backscattered particles were detected by a silicon surface-barrier detector (SSBD) with backscattering angle of 165° from the incident beam. The RRBS spectra were simulated by SIMNRA software and C concentration was obtained from the simulation results [9]. GIXRD was conducted using STOE diffractometer with a glancing angle of 0.5 º with a Cu K α1 radiation (λ = 0.15405 nm).…”

“…Figure 1(b) shows the RBS spectrum of C: ZnO thin-film on quartz. The spectrum was simulated with SIMNRA program to extract the film thickness and the elemental concentration of C, O and Zn [9]. The film thickness was found to be around 10 nm for C and 40 nm for ZnO layers.…”

Field Emission from Silicon Implanted with Carbon and Nitrogen Followed by Electron Beam Annealing

“…19,20 A 0.92-meV deuteron ion beam was used for NRA measurements. A surface barrier detector, mounted at a backscattering angle of 150°, was used to measure the signals (surface area 300 mm 2 with a 10.6-lm Mylar film filter).…”

Modifying the conductivity of polypyrrole through low-energy lead ion implantation

“…The films, embedded in resin, were thinly sliced in order to view a cross-section. Rutherford Backscattering spectrometry (RBS) was performed using a 3 MV Van-de-Graaff accelerator at GNS Science [27] with a 2.0 MeV 4 He þ beam collimated to 1 mm to determine the implanted Pb concentrations in the film. Spectra were measured with a collimated (1.5 mm slit type) Surface Barrier Detector (SBD) positioned at the backscattering angle of 165 and the RBS spectra were analyzed with RUMP [28] simulations to retrieve the Pb concentration profile.…”

“…Rutherford Backscattering spectrometry (RBS) was used in order to verify the implanted fluence and for elemental analysis [27]. Table 1 summarizes the Pb implanted concentration as retrieved from RUMP analysis.…”