Effects of Ag+ and Au3+ ion implantation of lithium niobate

The optical effects of implantation of lithium niobate crystals with 100 keV Ag+ and 8 MeV Au3+ ions with fluences of 1 × 1017 ions/cm2 have been investigated. Metal nanoparticle formation has been studied as a function of annealing temperature, and the resulting optical extinction curves have been simulated by the Mie theory in the small particle limit. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) has provided direct evidence for the MNP sizes allowing comparison with the calculated results. A TEM study of an X-cut sample implanted with Ag+ ions show that the implanted region is partially amorphised. The differences in the temperature of Au colloid development in X- and Y-cut faces of the lithium niobate crystal are attributed to restoration of crystallinity as a result of annealing.