Structural damage in ZnO bombarded by heavy ions

The effect of implantation parameters on damage build-up in ZnO bombarded with Bi and Er ions is studied by Rutherford backscattering/channelling spectrometry. The results show that the damage accumulation behaviour in ZnO is different dramatically from that in other semiconductors. In particular, a variation of implantation parameters, such as collision cascade density, sample temperature and ion flux, has only a minor influence on the damage accumulation in the crystal bulk for the case of such heavy ions. Moreover, an intermediate damage peak, between the surface and bulk defect peaks, is observed for all the irradiation conditions studied. The cascade density affects the behaviour of this intermediate peak with increasing ion dose.