Interaction of 〈1 0 0〉 and ½〈1 1 1〉 dislocation loops with point defects in ferritic alloys

The interaction between dislocation loops of interstitial nature with ½〈1 1 1〉 and 〈1 0 0〉 Burgers vectors and point defects in Fe has been studied molecular dynamics. Comparative calculations have been carried out using two interatomic potentials for pure Fe ([G.J. Ackland, M.I. Mendelev, D.J. Srolovitz, S. Han, A.V. Barashev, J. Phys.: Condens. Mater. 16 (2004) 1; S. Dudarev, P. Derlet, J. Phys.: Condens. Mater. 17 (2005) 7097]). The results of this study are range and energy of the interaction as functions of size and mutual position of defects. The applied potentials predict somewhat different strain field structure for 〈1 0 0〉 loops and therefore different lengths of interaction. However, both potentials suggest that, contrary to common belief, the distance of cluster-defect interaction within the glide prism of a ½〈1 1 1〉 cluster is significantly longer than that of a 〈1 0 0〉 cluster of similar size, in spite of the longer Burgers vector in the latter case.     

Effects of Fe-He potential on primary damage formation in Fe-1%He

The effects of different Fe-He interatomic potentials on primary damage formation in Fe-1%He are investigated using molecular dynamics (MD) methods. Simulations of cascades produced by primary knock-on atoms (PKA) of energy E_p = 0.5-10 keV were performed at an irradiation temperature of 100 K. It is found that the Fe-He potentials have significant effects on the point defect creation and the formation of Fe-He interstitial clusters, whereas small effects on the formation of He-vacancy clusters.     

Angular distribution of GaAs sputtered under oblique Cs bombardment

The angular distribution of Ga and As sputtered from Gallium Arsenide (1 0 0) by a Cs⁺ ion beam was experimentally measured through a collector technique allowing modifications of the energy and incidence angle of the ion beam. The impact energy was varied in the range of 2-10 keV and the angle of incidence from 30° to 60°.The angular distributions of emitted matter are determined by means of SIMS depth profiles. Our series of experiments show an evolution of the preferential direction of emission as well as the spreading around this direction in function of the characteristics of the ion beam.The second objective is the study of the evolution of the stoichiometry of the deposit in function of the emission angle. A decrease of the As/Ga ratio around the preferential direction of emission and an increase of this ratio for oblique emission are observed for different conditions of primary bombardment. Considering that the angular distribution depends on the depth of origin, our results suggest that the Cs⁺ bombardment changes the stoichiometry of the near-surface layers of the sample with an enrichment of As in the outmost layers while the sub-surface region is impoverished in As due to preferential sputtering.     

Molecular dynamics simulations of CH ions interaction with silicon carbide

In this study, we have simulated the CH⁺ ions bombardment on a Si-terminated 3C-SiC (0 0 1) surface using molecular dynamic simulations with a Tersoff-Brenner potentials. The results show that the sputtering yields of Si atoms is more than that of C atoms. With increasing incident energy the uptake of H atoms increases, while the uptake of C atoms decreases. In amorphous layer, a carbon-rich region is observed. In the films, the CH group and SiH group are dominant. Their fractions increase with increasing incident energy, and then decrease.     

Characterization of the Ne-Al scattering potential using low energy ion scattering maps

In this study, we examine the scattering of inert-gas ions from Al(1 1 1) using low energy ion scattering (LEIS). These techniques, because of their high surface specificity, provide structural and compositional information from the first atomic layer of the surface and can be used to determine the configuration of low-Z adsorbates. Extracting structural information embedded in LEIS data presents many challenges, given the complex collision processes which ultimately contribute to the detected scattering and recoil signals. To aid in the interpretation of these data, we map scattered Ne⁺ ion signals over a wide range of crystal orientations with respect to the incident beam in order to investigate a variety of scattering geometries. The signals are also simulated using a modified version of the MARLOWE binary collision code and related to the surface structure. We make quantitative comparisons between the simulated results and the experimental data using reliability factors, and are able to show how the interatomic potential can be calibrated.     

Thickness and MeV Si ions bombardment effects on the thermoelectric properties of Ce3Sb10 thin films

The three single layer Ce₃Sb₁₀ thin films were grown on silicon dioxide and quartz (suprasil) substrates with thicknesses of 297, 269 and 70 nm using ion beam assisted deposition (IBAD) technique. The high-energy cross plane Si ion bombardments with constant energy of 5 MeV have been performed with varying fluence from 1 × 10¹², 1 × 10¹³, 1 × 10¹⁴, 1 × 10¹⁵ ions/cm². The Si ions bombardment modified the thermoelectric properties of films as expected. The fluence and temperature dependence of cross plane thermoelectric parameters that are Seebeck coefficient, electrical and thermal conductivities were determined to evaluate the dimensionless figure of merit, ZT. Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RBS) enabled us to determine the elemental composition of the deposited materials and layer thickness of each film.     

The emission process of secondary ions from solids bombarded with large gas cluster ions

We investigated the effects of size and energy of large incident Ar cluster ions on the secondary ion emission of Si. The secondary ions were measured using a double deflection method and a time-of-flight (TOF) technique. The size of the incident Ar cluster ions was between a few hundreds and several tens of thousands of atoms, and the energy up to 60 keV. Under the incidence of keV energy atomic Ar ions, mainly atomic Si ions were detected, whereas Si cluster ions were rarely observed. On the other hand, under the incidence of large Ar cluster ions, the dominant secondary ions were  (2 ? n ? 11). It has become clear that the yield ratio of secondary Si cluster ions was determined by the velocity of the incident cluster ions, and this strong dependence of the yield ratio on incident velocity should be related to the mechanisms of secondary ion emission under large Ar cluster ion bombardment.     

Amorphous phase and anisotropy induced by glancing incident ion beams in Co-Nb films

Co-Nb amorphous films were prepared with the aid of glancing incident ion beams during deposition process. Influence of ion interaction to phase formation and fine microstructure was studied. Amorphous range is about 19 to 63 at.% Co fractions, which is wider than that obtained by perpendicular ion bombardment (28 to 68 at.% of Co fractions). A ripple or a bamboo raft pattern with nano-scale periodicity is observed in the TEM (transmission electron microscopy), SEM (scanning electron microscopy) and AFM (atomic force microscopy) images. The sizes of the image patterns are characterized by correlation length calculated from height-height correlation function (HHCF). The correlation length along the ion incidence is longer than that perpendicular to the ion incidence. Analysis regards that the glancing incident ion beams have high efficiency in both rapid cooling and ion mixing (IM). The main pattern feature in the images mainly comes from surface erosion. Other fine microstructure and the difference among the images result from surface diffusion or viscous flow effect.     

Silkworm eggs: An ideal model for studying the biological effects of low energy Ar ion interaction in animals

The object of the current work was to study low energy Ar⁺ ion beam interactions with silkworm eggs and thus provide further understanding of the mechanisms involved in ion bombardment-induced direct gene transfer into silkworm eggs. In this paper, using low-energy Ar⁺ ion beam bombardment combined with piggyBac transposon, we developed a novel method to induce gene transfer in silkworm. Using bombardment conditions optimized for egg-incubation (25 keV with ion fluences of 800 × 2.6 × 10¹⁵ ions/cm² in dry state under vacuum), vector pBac{3 × P3-EGFPaf} and helper plasmid pHA3pig were successfully transferred into the silkworm eggs. Our results obtained from by PCR assay and genomic Southern blotting analysis of the G1 generations provide evidence that low-energy ion beam can generate some craters that play a role in acting as pathways of exogenous DNA molecules into silkworm eggs.     

Ion bombardment induced changes in the optical and electrical properties of polycarbonate

The changes in the optical and electrical properties of polycarbonate (PC) films, bombarded with He and Ar ion beams, have been studied. The PC films were divided into two groups where the first group was bombarded with 130 keV He ions of fluences ranged from 1 × 10¹⁴ cm⁻² to 2 × 10¹⁶ cm⁻², while the second one was bombarded with 320 keV Ar of fluences (1 × 10¹³ cm⁻² and 1 × 10¹⁵ cm⁻²). The surface morphology of the unirradiated and irradiated PC films was studied using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) technique. The optical properties of the two groups have been carried out using UV-Vis spectrophotometer and the direct current (DC) electrical conductivity was also performed. The obtained results showed a decrease in the optical energy gap, the optical activation energy and the electrical activation energy with increasing the fluence of both He and Ar ions. Meanwhile, an increase in the DC conductivity was obtained with increasing the fluence of the ions. The bombardment of the PC films with He and Ar ion beams induced formation of carbon clusters near the polymer surface and, also, resulted in scission in the polymer chains.     

Cold atoms photoassociation with intense laser pulses

We study the vibrational dynamics produced when two cold atoms are photoassociated in a diatomic molecule by an intense laser pulse (with the duration of hundreds ps), inducing a resonance condition at small interatomic distances. The example analysed is the population transfer from the continuum to the 1_g(6s + 6p_3/2) excited electronic potential of the Cs₂ molecule, at a temperature T ≈ 0.11 mK. We use a non-perturbative treatment by following the wavepackets dynamics on the ground and excited surfaces. We show that cold molecules can be efficiently produced in both ground and excited electronic potentials.     

Effect of N and C ion beam bombardment on the optical and structural characteristics of ethylene-norbornene copolymer (TOPAS)

Ion bombardment is a suitable tool to modify the optical properties of polymers. In the present study the effect of ion bombardment on the optical absorption of ethylene-norbornene copolymer (TOPAS) was studied using ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) and Raman spectroscopy. Polymer samples were bombarded with 60 keV C⁴⁺ and N⁴⁺ ion beams to various fluences ranging from 1.0 × 10¹³ to 1.0 × 10¹⁶ cm⁻². The indirect and direct band gaps have been determined. The values of direct band gaps have been found to be greater than the corresponding values of the indirect band gaps. Activation energy has been investigated as the function of ion fluences. The number of carbon atoms per conjugated length is determined according to modified Tauc’s equation. The correlation between the optical band gap, activation energy for optical transition and the number of carbon atoms per conjugated length as well as chemical structure changes induced by ion beams irradiation have been discussed in the case of ethylene-norbornene copolymer.     

Influence of screening length modification on the scattering cross section in LEIS

Scattering cross sections for He⁺ ions in the energy range of 100 eV to 100 keV and for Al, Cu and Au target atoms were calculated. Employing the Thomas-Fermi-Molière model the potential strength was tuned by variation of the screening length. The resulting change in scattering cross section was analyzed and the absolute value is compared to cross sections obtained from potentials commonly employed in the medium-energy ion scattering (MEIS) regime. A large influence on the scattering cross section is observed for targets with large atomic number in the very low energy range. For instance, the scattering cross section for 100 eV He⁺-ions scattered from Au by 129° changes by a factor of 2.5 between different potential strengths claimed in the literature to be suitable for low-energy ion scattering (LEIS) energies. An experiment to determine electronic energy loss of very slow ions in metals is presented. It shows how uncertainties in the scattering potential strength can lead to systematically wrong results, although perfect agreement between experimental data and simulations is found. The impact of these results on quantitative surface structure and composition analysis is discussed.     

Ionization in symmetric and nearly symmetric low energy ion-surface collisions

Multiply charged ions are emitted following bombardment of Al(1 0 0) and Si(1 1 1) by low energy Si⁺ and P⁺ ions. The ion formation is attributed to inner-shell electron promotion during a hard collision between symmetric or nearly symmetric atomic species, followed by Auger decay outside the surface. The relative yield of triply charged Si ions for Si⁺ → Si(1 1 1) is much smaller than that of triply charged Al ions in direct recoil Si⁺ → Al(1 0 0) experiments. This difference can be explained by assuming that only one 2p hole is produced in a Si atom during the symmetric collision, whereas a double 2p hole is also produced in the Al atom following the nearly symmetric Si-Al collision. Further evidence is provided by the complimentary experiment P⁺ → Si(1 1 1), where Si³⁺ regains its intensity and Si⁴⁺ emerges as a result of a double 2p hole decay with shake-off.     

The density effects in sputtering of amorphous materials

The effects of the target atomic density on sputtering of amorphous targets under 1 keV Ar ion bombardment have been investigated using binary-collision simulation. Attention was given to the sputtering yield, and the angular and energy distributions of sputtered atoms. A large set of targets, from ³Li to ⁹²U was considered and three interatomic potentials were applied. It has been shown that both the sputtering yield and the angular and energy distributions of sputtered atoms are undoubtedly dependent on the target atomic density. Results are compared with the data from the literature.     

Multiscale modelling of bi-crystal grain boundaries in bcc iron

Atomistic simulations have provided much insight into grain boundary (GB) structures and mechanisms which are important in understanding the properties of materials. In this paper, the ∑3{1 1 2}, ∑3{1 1 1} and ∑5{0 1 3} (coincidence site lattice) GBs of bcc iron are investigated using molecular statics (MS) simulations, ab initio DFT calculations and the simulated HRTEM method. For the MS calculations, four empirical potentials, the Ackland potential (1997), Mendelev potentials 2 and 4 and the Dudarev-Derlet potential have been used. The MS results for all three symmetrical grain boundaries show the results to be independent of the empirical potential implemented. After relaxation, the symmetrical structures of the GBs remain, in agreement with ab initio calculation results.     

Resonant Rutherford backscattering spectrometry for carbon diffusion in silicon

300 keV C⁺ ion implantation onto Si(1 0 0) wafers was carried out at temperatures of 400, 500, 550, 600, 650 and 700 °C. Depth profile of C was determined by resonant Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RRBS) measurements using ¹²C(α,α)¹²C resonant reaction with the α-particle energy of 4.27 MeV. The concentration of the implanted carbon at the surface as a function of inverse of implantation temperature shows an Arrhenius behaviour. The activation energy for diffusion of carbon in Si was measured and found to be 0.434 eV, which is smaller than the activation energy (0.88 eV) for the C diffusion in Si in equilibrium condition. The possible mechanism of C diffusion in Si during irradiation conditions existing in our experiments where large concentration of vacancies and interstitials are produced is discussed and we find that the C diffusion during irradiation conditions could be due to the drag the carbon towards the surface by the vacancy flux.     

Ion induced high energy electron emission from copper

We present measurements of secondary electron emission from Cu induced by low energy bombardment (1-5 keV) of noble gas (He⁺, Ne⁺ and Ar⁺) and Li⁺ ions. We identify different potential and kinetic mechanisms and find the presence of high energetic secondary electrons for a couple of ion-target combinations. In order to understand the presence of these fast electrons we need to consider the Fermi shuttle mechanism and the different ion neutralization efficiencies.     

Dynamic dependence of the interaction potentials for grazing scattering of fast atoms from metal and insulator surfaces

For scattering of fast atoms from metal and insulator surfaces under axial channeling conditions pronounced peaks in the angular distributions of scattered projectiles are interpreted in terms of rainbow scattering. The angular position of such “rainbow peaks” are closely related to the interaction potential and its corrugation in the topmost surface region. We have scattered N and O atoms, with energies ranging from 10 to 70 keV, from clean and flat Al(0 0 1) and LiF(0 0 1) surfaces along low index axial directions in the surface plane and studied the positions of the rainbow peaks as function of the kinetic energy of the atomic projectiles normal to the surface. For the insulator surface the rainbow angle does not depend on projectile energy for constant normal energy, whereas for the metal surface we find pronounced dynamic effects. We interpret this different behaviour as arising from a projectile energy dependent contribution to the underlying interaction potentials owing to embedding the projectiles into the free electron gas in the selvedge of the surfaces, which is present for the metals but absent for insulators.