Simulation Study on the Defect Generation, Accumulation Mechanism and Mechanical Response of GaAs Nanowires under Heavy-Ion Irradiation.

Tongxuan Jia,Wuying Ma,Yuanyuan Xue,Minghua Tang,Baoping He,Zujun Wang,Gang Huang,Shankun Lai,Xu Nie,Shilong Gou

doi:10.3390/nano12040611

Tongxuan Jia, Wuying Ma + Show 8 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/nano12040611

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Nanowire structures with high-density interfaces are considered to have higher radiation damage resistance properties compared to conventional bulk structures. In the present work, molecular dynamics (MD) is conducted to investigate the irradiation effects and mechanical response changes of GaAs nanowires (NWs) under heavy-ion irradiation. For this simulation, single-ion damage and high-dose ion injection are used to reveal defect generation and accumulation mechanisms. The presence of surface effects gives an advantage to defects in rapid accumulation but is also the main cause of dynamic annihilation of the surface. Overall, the defects exhibit a particular mechanism of rapid accumulation to saturation. Moreover, for the structural transformation of irradiated GaAs NWs, amorphization is the main mode. The main damage mechanism of NWs is sputtering, which also leads to erosion refinement at high doses. The high flux ions lead to a softening of the mechanical properties, which can be reflected by a reduction in yield strength and Young’s modulus.

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Compared with traditional bulk materials, semiconductor nanowires (NWs) on the one-dimensional nanoscale have excellent mechanical and optoelectronic properties [1,2]due to their remarkable quantum size effect and surface effect
The presence of surface effects at lower energies makes the number of nanowire defects larger than that of bulk structures
The low stopping power of the nanowire structure for high-energy particles means that less collisional energy transfer occurs, which is the main reason for the non-linear relationship of the defects

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Compared with traditional bulk materials, semiconductor nanowires (NWs) on the one-dimensional nanoscale have excellent mechanical and optoelectronic properties [1,2]due to their remarkable quantum size effect and surface effect. With the development of metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE) technology, many examples of high purity and quality semiconductor NWs produced in practical experiments [3,4,5,6], which makes it possible to provide potential applications in the field of space-based nano-optoelectronic devices Among these materials, III-V compounds such as gallium arsenide (GaAs) have excellent properties such as wide direct bandgap coverage [7] and high electron mobility [8]. Similar to neutrons, heavy-ion displacement cascade collisions within the target materials can cause point defects, defect clusters and amorphous pockets, and eventually form steady-state damage configurations during long migration and recombination [10,11,12] These steady-state defects on the surface and interior of NWs can degrade the mechanical properties of the devices, which may Nanomaterials 2022, 12, 611.

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