Abstract
We have investigated ion beam induced epitaxial recrystallization (IBIER) of amorphous alumina thin films deposited on c-axis single crystal sapphire substrates. The alumina thin films, deposited by electron-beam evaporation, were about 66 and 90 nm thick, and doped with Fe cations to cation concentrations of 0 and 2 at.%, respectively. The as-deposited samples were subsequently irradiated at temperatures of 400, 500, and 600°C with either 180 keV oxygen ions or 360 keV argon ions. The process of IBIER was characterised with Rutherford backscattering spectrometry combined with ion channeling techniques. A kinetics study showed that the process of IBIER in alumina is characterised by an effective activation energy of 0.23 ± 0.05 eV. This value is one order of magnitude lower than that (5.0 eV) determined from the thermal annealing studies for the phase transformation of gamma-to-alpha. Our preliminary study also revealed that the presence of Fe cations in the films inhibits the IBIER process.
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