A potential lattice damage scale in swift heavy ion irradiated InP

Abstract

AbstractThis article reports a comprehensive study on the damage evolution in InP crystal irradiated by swift heavy ions (SHIs, 129Xe and 209Bi). The damage effects were investigated by means of Raman spectroscopy. An analysis of the TO and LO phonon intensities ratio (ITO/ILO) for a given geometry will yield insights into the lattice quality. A direct comparison of the experimental and theoretical results of ITO/ILO has been discussed in detail. The experimental results show that the intensity ratio ITO/ILO increases with the increased ion fluences and electron energy loss (dE/dx)e. In addition, significant red‐shifts of the LO peak were observed that indicates tensile strain was induced during the energy deposition process. Theoretical analysis suggests that defects and disorders generated in the crystals strongly contribute to the intensity ratio ITO/ILO. By TEM observation, we obtained direct evidence that the proportion of disorders and amorphization is proportional to the (dE/dx)e of incident ions, which further confirms that the ITO/ILO ratio measured by Raman spectroscopy is function of irradiation‐induced damages. Therefore, the variation in the intensity ratio ITO/ILO can be used as a nondestructive tool to evaluate the lattice damages in zincblende‐type crystals.