Ion beam induced endotaxial silver nanostructures in silicon

Coherently embedded structures in a crystalline substrate are known as endotaxial structures. In this paper, we report on the growth of silver (Ag) endotaxial structures in silicon using the aspects of both ion implantation and irradiation. In one case, endotaxial nanostructures of Ag at the Si interface are formed with 30 keV negatively charged silver ions (Ag−) on GeOx/SiOx/Si system. In another case, 30 keV Ag− ions are used to create defects in GeOx, SiOx and in silicon substrate. Further deposition of a thin layer of Ag on irradiated GeOx/SiOx/Si system yielded endotaxial Ag nanostructures relatively at lower temperature (700 °C) compared to the system without any irradiation effects. We also reveal that the irradiation effects with 1.8 MeV Ag+ ions do not influence the early onset temperature of endotaxial nanostructure formation (unlike low energy ions). We show that it is essential to have crystalline silicon substrate to form Ag endotaxial nanostructures to grow endotaxial structures.