MeV Au ion irradiation in silicon and nanocrystalline zirconia film deposited on silicon substrate

Nanocrystalline zirconia (ZrO ₂) film with thickness of 305 nm deposited on a silicon substrate was irradiated with 2 MeV Au ions to different fluences at different temperatures. The implanted ion profiles were measured by time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) and simulated using the stopping and range of ions in matter (SRIM) code, respectively. The experimental results show that a large fraction of the incident Au ions penetrates through the ZrO ₂ film and are deposited into the Si substrate. At the interface of ZrO ₂ and Si, a sudden decrease of Au concentration is observed due to the much larger scattering cross section of Au in ZrO ₂ than in Si. The depth profile of the Au ions is measured in both the ZrO ₂ films and the Si substrates, and the results show that the Au distribution profiles do not exhibit a dependence on irradiation temperature. The local Au concentration increases proportionally with the irradiation fluence, suggesting that no thermal or irradiation-induced redistribution of the implanted Au ions. However, the Au concentration in the ZrO ₂ films, as determined by SIMS, is considerably lower than that predicted by the SRIM results, and the penetration depth from the SIMS measurements is much deeper than that from the SRIM predictions. These observations can be explained by an overestimation of the electronic stopping power, used in the SRIM program, for heavy incident ions in light targets. Overestimation of the heavy-ion electronic stopping power may lead to errors in local dose calculation and underestimation of the projected range of slow heavy ions in targets that contain light elements. A quick estimate based on a reduced target density may be used to compensate the overestimation of the electronic stopping power in the SRIM program to provide better ion profile prediction.