Mixing induced by swift heavy ion irradiation at Fe/Si interface

The present work deals with the mixing of metal and silicon by swift heavy ions in high-energy range. Threshold value for the defect creation in metal Fe calculated was found to be ∼ 40 keV/nm. A thin film of Fe (10 nm) was deposited on Si (100) at a pressure of 4 × 10⁻⁸ Torr and was irradiated with 95 MeV Au ions. Irradiation was done at RT, to a dose of 10¹³ ions/cm² and 1 pna current. The electronic energy loss was found to be 29.23 keV/nm for 95 MeV Au ions in Fe using TRIM calculation. Compositional analysis of samples was done by Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy. Reflectivity studies were carried out on the pre-annealed and post-annealed samples to study irradiation effects. Grazing incidence X-ray diffraction was done to study the interface. It was observed that ion beam mixing reactions at RT lead to mixing as a result of high electronic excitations.