Ripening of subsurface amorphous C clusters formed by low energy He ion bombardment of graphite

Abstract

Surfaces of highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) were bombarded with 100 eV and 500 eV He ions at ion doses of a few 10 15 cm 2 and temperatures ranging from 300 K to 800 K. AFM images were recorded to investigate the topography of the surfaces after ion bombardment. Supplementary electron energy loss (EEL) and thermal desorption (TD) spectra were measured to determine the C sp 2 fraction of the bombarded surfaces and the amount of trapped He. The temperature at which He ion bombardment was performed had a drastic effect on the surface structure and topography of the targets on the angstrom-scale and micrometer-scale as well. At 300 K, limited defect atom transport revealed an amorphous but relatively flat HOPG surface. Bombardment at 400 K leads to a granular structure of small protrusions in micrometer-scale AFM images, however, without crystalline order on the surface. The protrusions are due to the formation of subsurface clusters of carbon formed by atoms displaced by ion irradiation. Towards higher temperatures during bombardment the clusters agglomerate and cause the surface layers to bend upwards in dome-like shapes. Simultaneously, the microscopic order of the graphite lattice recovers. At 800 K large areas of the top layer retain their order during bombardment, however, a small number of domes indicate that there still exist some subsurface C clusters. The cluster–cluster distance deduced from the dome distribution indicates that the clusters grow through a ripening process. Annealing of graphite at high temperatures subsequent to ion bombardment at low temperatures is much less effective for recovering the surface crystallinity than ion bombardment at high temperature.