Europium diffusion in y- and z-cut linbo3pre-irradiated by gev uranium ions

Abstract

Abstract Single crystals of LiNbO3 with y- and z-cut orientations were irradiated at GANIL with 3.37 MeV/amu 238U ions at a fluence ranging from 1.0 × 1011 to 4.0 × 1011 ions.cm−2. The damage resulting from these irradiations at high electronic stopping powers (> 10 KeV/nm) consists mainly of amorphous tracks. After irradiation the samples were implanted with europium ions of 70 keV energy at a fixed fluence of 5 × 1016 ions. Subsequent annealings in air, in the range 700–1100°C, were applied to investigate the influence of the pre-irradiation damage on the thermal evolution of Eu implanted LiNbO3 crystals. Rutherford Backscattering Spectrometry (RBS) results clearly show that the existence of the amorphous tracks enhances the europium diffusion. An anisotropy effect has been observed in the diffusion process.