Nanocrystal Formation Via Yttrium Ion Implantation into Sapphire
AbstractIon implantation has been used to form nanocrystals in the near surface of single crystal A12O3. The ion fluence was 5 x 1016 Y+/cm2, and the implant energies investigated were 100, 150, and 170 keV. The morphology of the implanted region was investigated using transmission electron microscopy, x-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy, Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy and ion channeling. The implantation causes the formation of an amorphous surface layer which contains spherical nanosized crystals with a diameter of ∼13 nm. The nanocrystals are randomly oriented and exhibit a face-centered cubic structure with a lattice pmeter of ∼4.1 A ± .02 A. Preliminary chemical analysis shows that these nanocrystals are rich in aluminum and yttrium and poor in oxygen relative to the amorphous matrix.