Swift heavy ion irradiation induced texturing in NiO thin films

NiO thin films grown on Si(1 0 0) substrate by electron beam evaporation and sintered at 500 and 700 °C were irradiated with 120 MeV Au9+ ions. The FCC structure of the sintered films was retained up to the highest fluence (3 × 1013 ions cm−2) of irradiation. In the low fluence (⩽1 × 1013 ions cm−2) regime however, the evolution of the XRD pattern with fluence showed a wide variation, critically depending upon their initial microstructure. Though irradiation is known to induce disorder in the structure, we observe improvement in crystallization and texturing at intermediate fluences of irradiation.