Investigation of ionoluminescence of semiconductor materials using helium ion microscopy

Helium ion microscopy has been employed to investigate the ionoluminescence of various semiconductors. We have verified the possibility of application of this technique for high-resolution ionoluminescence analysis of this kind of materials. In this work the ionoluminescence signal was induced by a sub-nanometer He+ beam with an energy of 35 keV. Several types of semiconductor samples were investigated: bulk materials, nanowires and quantum dots. All samples were found to exhibit ionoluminescence. However, the ionoluminescence signal rapidly degrades under the ion irradiation. The signal degradation was found to depend not only on the sample׳s composition, but also on its size. The ionoluminescence emission spectra were recorded and emission peaks identified.