Non-linear damage accumulation in Au-irradiated SrTiO3

Ion-induced damage in strontium titanate (SrTiO3) has been investigated using 1.0 MeV Au ions at 150 K and room temperature. Rutherford backscattering spectrometry using 2.0 MeV He+ beam was carried out along the 〈1 0 0〉 direction to study crystalline damage and the accumulation behavior. Damage accumulation has been determined as the relative disorder on the Sr and Ti sublattices at the damage peak as a function of local dose. A disorder accumulation model has been fit to both the Sr and Ti damage accumulation data and contributions from the amorphous fraction and the crystalline disorder are discussed. The results indicate that defect-stimulated amorphization is the primary amorphization mechanism in SrTiO3. The sigmoidal behavior in damage accumulation leads to non-linear increase of the width of the damage profile.