Interface mixing induced by swift heavy ions at metal-oxide/silicon interfaces

In this paper we report on the interface mixing of NiO, Fe2O3, TiO2 on Si due to irradiation with 90-350 MeV Ar-, Kr-, Xe- and Au-ions at 80 K at fluences up to 9E15 ions/cm2. Interface mixing, analyzed by means of Rutherford Backscattering Spectrometry (RBS), is found for these bilayers, too. But the threshold for intermixing is significantly higher compared to the ceramic/ceramic bilayers. This observation could be an evidence for the threshold being determined by the Si-layer. In contrast to NiO/Si and Fe2O3/Si, where an usual random walk mixing Δσ2 = kΦ was observed, the interface broadening Δσ2 for TiO2/Si is found to scale nonlinearly with the ion fluence, which indicates that mixing is driven by a chemical solid-state reaction. At higher fluences plateaus form at the low energy Ni-edge of the RBS spectra. The plateaus indicate phase formation. X-Ray diffraction spectra does not show any evidence for new crystalline phases.