Bleaching and micro-cracking phenomena induced in various types of sapphires by keV-electron beam irradiations

Electron-beam-induced phenomena on α-Al2O3 single-crystals have been investigated using a scanning electron microscope with a cathodoluminescence (CL) apparatus. Various types of sapphires were irradiated at room temperature by keV electrons of the total fluences up to ≈6 × 1020 electrons cm−2. In the case of colored specimens, increasing amounts of electron irradiations induced a reversible “bleaching” phenomenon and subsequently an irreversible “cracking” phenomenon on nanometer scales in the surface and subsurface layers. The details of the fluence dependences of these beam-induced changes differed among the various natural and synthetic sapphires. These changes were dramatically reduced by the presence of thin metal layers on the insulating sapphire surfaces, indicating that these phenomena were induced by the presence of charges accumulated in the specimens. Such electron irradiations also varied CL intensities of the F+ center peaked at 330 nm while the Cr3+ center CL peak observed at 697 nm was almost unchanged in intensity with increasing the electron fluence. Furthermore, information on these CL centers along the depth direction from the specimen surface was obtained using variable incident electron energies ranging from 1 to 25 keV. The above phenomena are discussed in relation to the crystalline quality of the specimens examined.