Low energy Cn cluster ion induced damage effects in Si(1 0 0) substrates

Si(1 0 0) substrates were implanted with Cn- (n = 1, 3, 5) ions at 5 keV/atom for fluence ranging between 1 × 1014 and 1.6 × 1015 atoms cm−2. The implanted samples were analysed using channeling Rutherford backscattering spectrometry with growth in the surface peak intensity representing growth in damage. At lower fluence cluster ion implantation has been found to result in nonlinear damage production, the nonlinearity increasing with cluster size. Increase in fluence has been found to result in lower nonlinearity. The present values of nonlinearity are much higher for those obtained with C clusters in Si at MeV energies which is primarily because of beam induced annealing effects, coming from electronic energy loss. The cross section for damage production has also been estimated which for all the three values of n yield a consistent result.