Indirect recoil implantation following nuclear reactions: Theory and potential applications

Abstract

A general treatment of indirect recoil implantation following nuclear reactions is given for the first time. This method allows implantation into any substrate of a wide range of species produced by nuclear reactions either in a thin sacrificial target or from a solid target. It is demonstrated that this can be done whilst avoiding primary beam damage to the substrate. Two cases are considered, the general one in which non-elastic nuclear reactions produce the recoil species of interest and secondly the special case of elastic recoils. In both cases a number of novel features of the process not previously described are outlined. For example, by controlling the angular acceptance of the substrate for recoil products the method can be tailored to give well controlled implantation profiles very similar to direct implantation (i.e., approximately Gaussian in range) or more extensive depth distributions whose profiles are simply determined by the centre of mass angular distribution of the reaction product. The flux of particles available for implantation is approximately 10 −4 smaller than from direct implantation facilities, but is comparable to the useful implantation dose achieved by the established technique of direct elastic recoil implantation. The radiation damage is little more than that associated with the indirect implant itself in contrast to direct elastic recoil implantation where the potential damage produced often mediates against the use of that technique. The main advantage of this relatively new method over the conventional methods is the wider range of species which can be implanted with minimum damage to the substrate. These include elements which cannot be conveniently produced from ion sources as well as exotic species which cannot be produced other than by nuclear reactions; radioactive species are good examples of both cases. The method could make an impact in a number of areas, for example, for the injection of radioactive isotopes of the substrate in the study of irradiation damage, diffusion and catalysis; thin film technology, device technology, implantation metallurgy and radiotracers are also possible areas of exploitation. A number of applications in the radiotracer area, viz to radiation sensitive materials, specifically for thin layer activation studies, are discussed.