Surface Modification of Pb1 – xSnxSe Films during Plasma Treatment Near the Sputtering Threshold

Variation of Surface Nanostructures on (100) PbS Single Crystals during Argon Plasma Treatment

“…The sputtering rate was determined as the ratio of the etching step height at the interface between the sputtered and non-sputtered regions, which was measured using SEM, to the time of plasma treatment. Notably, the sputtering rate of the studied (100) PbS crystals at the ion energy of 25 eV (0.1 nm s −1 ) was much lower than that of single-crystal (111) PbX films (0.5 nm s −1 at E i = 25 eV for PbSe [25]). The very low etching rate at an energy of 25 eV in this case may be due to the difficult sputtering of the thin, partially oxidized near-surface layer formed during mechanical polishing and chemical cleaning.…”

“…During interaction of ions with the surface, different surface nanostructure formation mechanisms are possible [13][14][15][16][17][18][19], which makes ion and ion-plasma techniques an important tool for surface nanostructuring. We used binary compounds of PbX and ternary solid solutions based on them as examples to show that varying inductively coupled argon plasma treatment condition enables the formation of micro-and nanostructures [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27]. These nanostructures exhibit various morphologies on the surface 2 of 11 of single crystals and mono-and polycrystalline films of lead chalcogenides, which can influence the optical properties of modified systems.…”

“…Specifically, the sputtered material was redeposited on a heated surface in the form of "building blocks" consisting of both binary PbX molecules and atomic lead, which formed nano-and microstructures on the surface. In our previous studies [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27], only a certain set of conditions were considered for the ion-plasma treatment, leading to specific types of nanostructures. Alternatively, in the present work for the first time, various plasma treatment conditions have been employed in the ion energy range of 25-200 eV, and the physical processes occurring during surface modification have been analyzed using the crystals of one specific material: PbS.…”