Crystalline nanostructures on Ge surfaces induced by ion irradiation

Besides conventional low efficiency lithographic techniques broad ion beam irradiation is a simple and potentially mass productive technique to fabricate nanoscale patterns on various semiconductor surfaces. The main drawback of this method is that the irradiated semiconductor surfaces are amorphized, which strongly limits the potential application of these nanostructures in electronic and optoelectronic devices. In this work we report that high-quality crystalline nanostructure patterns are formed on Ge surfaces via Ar+ irradiation at elevated temperatures. This pattern formation process resembles the pattern formation in homoepitaxy. Therefore, the process is discussed based on a “reverse epitaxy” mechanism.