Striation Production by Grazing ION Incidence on Si

Abstract

Our own (1,2) and other earlier studies (3,4) of the development of surface topography during ion bombardment of Si suggested that different observations by different investigators could possibly be ascribed to surface contamination and residual vacuum condition effects. We therefore decided to conduct studies of the topography developed on Si under relatively high vacuum conditions. Cleaved segments of (100) oriented Si wafers were bombarded to fluences of about 5 x 10 cm with approximately 5 keV Ar ions, without beam aperturing, at a base pressure of about 10 torr. Bombardment was at normal incidence to the surface. The ion beam flux density profile was non uniform so that ion fluence decayed quite rapidly towards the periphery of the bombarded area. Following bombardment any morphological changes to the Si surface were examined by Scanning Electron microscopy.