Ion bombardment induced morphology modifications on self-organized semiconductor surfaces

Self‐organization of Nanostructures in Inorganic and Organic Semiconductor Systems

“…A detailed analysis of a SiGe sample with less dense arrangement of pyramids and pits showed more evidence for this behaviour. [28] When the ion erosion reaches higher sputter depths ( Fig. 4(b,c)), a sudden change in the morphology is seen.…”

“…1(a)) during low energy ion erosion. [28] The bombardment conditions were the same as in Section 3.1. For Ar + ion erosion of the self-organized SiGe checkerboard pattern of pyramids and pits (see Section 1) the results are summarized in Figure 4.…”

Nanostructure formation on ion-eroded SiGe film surfaces

“…Due to the knowledge of two distinct energy ranges [9] we chose two values for the ion energy: 250 and 750 eV, representing the "low" and "high"-ion energy regime, respectively. The sputter times range from 100 to 2000 s and are the same for corresponding samples.…”

“…In previous work we showed for {105} faceted SiGe substrates under Ar + ion bombardment a specific dependence of the rmsroughness on the sputter depth. Two different energy ranges were found, in which the surface either flattens or roughens [9]. To explore, whether the same behavior is observable on other SiGe substrates, this investigation was extended to completely different surface morphologies, consisting of {119} and {1 1 11} faceted mesa-structures as well as polycrystalline silicon-germanium substrates.…”

Comprehensive Analysis of Ion Beam Induced Stainless Steel Surface Morphology

“…In this connection the term "surface morphology" should mean, and usually means, knowledge about surface shape/surface sculpture (generally in micro-and nanoscale). Surface modification processes like surface polishing/smoothing [1,2], surface roughening [3], surface nanostructuring [4], surface nanopatterning [5,6] can be achieved by miscellaneous technologies [7][8][9] (mechanical, chemical, physical), among others with the use of ion irradiation [1][2][3][4][5][6]. The processes in question are important and should be considered in various areas of science and technology, for example: (a) in microelectronics where shrinking semiconductor dimensions cause that resist line edge roughness (LER) will be more important because roughness from the resist is transferred to the substrate with further processing steps [10] (for the patterning of sub-100 nm features, clear understanding of the origin and control of LER is extremely desirable, from a fundamental as well as a manufacturing perspective [11,12]), (b) in surface analysis [13] where ion beam sputtering is widely used in depth-profile analytical techniques such as, for instance, Auger electron spectroscopy (AES), Rutherford backscattering (RBS), secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS) or X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS).…”