Temperature of thermal spikes in amorphous silicon nitride films produced by 1.11Â MeV C603+ impacts

Gold nanoparticles with an average diameter of 3.6 nm were deposited on amorphous silicon nitride (a-SiN) films. These samples were irradiated with 1.11 MeV C603+ ions to a fluence of ∼5 × 1010 ions/cm2 and observed using transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The ion tracks were clearly seen as bright spots and the gold nanoparticles disappeared from a surface area with a diameter of ∼20 nm around each ion track. The disappeared nanoparticles were collected by a foil placed in front of the sample. Gold particles of circular shape with a diameter of several nm were observed on the collector foil using TEM, suggesting that the gold nanoparticles were emitted as liquid droplets from the a-SiN film upon impact of the C60 ion. In view of the previous molecular dynamics simulations (Anders et al., 2009), this indicates that the surface temperature rises above the melting point of gold in the region with a diameter of ∼20 nm around the ion impact position.