Development of porous structures in GaSb by ion irradiation

Ion irradiation of GaSb causes not only defect formation but also leads to the formation of a porous structure. To study the behaviour of this structural modification, GaSb was irradiated with 6 MeV Iodine ions and ion fluences from 5 × 1012 to 6 × 1015 ions/cm2. The samples were investigated by step height measurements and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Experiments were performed with two different procedures: (CI) Continuous Irradiation of samples followed by measurements of the step height in air and (SI) Stepwise Irradiation of samples with measurements of the step height in air between subsequent irradiations. Samples irradiated continuously, show a linear increase of the step height with increasing ion fluence up to 1.5 × 1014 ions/cm2 followed by a steeper, linear increase for higher ion fluences up to a step height of 32 μm. This swelling is induced by a formation of voids, and the two different slopes can be explained by a transformation from isolated voids to a rod like structure. For samples irradiated accordingly to procedure (SI), the step height shows the same behaviour up to an ion fluence of 1.5 × 1014 ions/cm2 resulting in a step height of ≈3 μm but then decreases with further irradiation. The latter effect is caused by a compaction of the porous structure.