Swelling and annealing phenomena of Si crystal irradiated by Ar and C ion beams

The swelling phenomenon of Si crystal, irradiated by Ar+ and C+ beams, and its morphological change through the thermal annealing process have been studied. The height of swelling structures produced by the Ar+ beam is much higher than that produced by the C+ beam at energy 90 keV with the fluence up to 8 × 1016/cm2. The large different in the swelling height was well understood base on the productivity of vacancies evaluated by the SRIM simulation and experiment. Post-implantation samples irradiated with fluence 4 × 1016/cm2, were annealed at various temperatures in the range of 200–800 °C. In the case of Ar+ irradiated samples, the swelling height started to increase at about 600 °C. In contrast, in the case of C+ beam irradiated samples, the swelling height started to decrease at about 600 °C and almost disappeared at 800 °C. The opposite behavior is understood based on the difference in irradiation-induced defect and in rearrangement mechanism in the thermal annealing process.