Time constant of defect relaxation in ion-irradiated 3C-SiC Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • Above room temperature, the buildup of radiation damage in SiC is a dynamic process governed by the mobility and interaction of ballistically generated point defects. Here, we study the dynamics of radiation defects in 3C-SiC bombarded at 100C with 500keV Ar ions, with the total ion dose split into a train of equal pulses. Damagedepth profiles are measured by ion channeling for a series of samples irradiated under identical conditions except for different durations of the passive part of the beam cycle. Results reveal an effective defect relaxation time constant of 3 ms (for second order kinetics) and a dynamic annealing efficiency of 40% for defects in both Si and C sublattices. This demonstrates a crucial role of dynamic annealing at elevated temperatures and provides evidence of the strong coupling of defect accumulation processes in the two sublattices of 3C-SiC.

published proceedings

  • APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS

author list (cited authors)

  • Wallace, J. B., Aji, L., Shao, L., & Kucheyev, S. O.

citation count

  • 23

complete list of authors

  • Wallace, JB||Aji, LB Bayu||Shao, L||Kucheyev, SO

publication date

  • May 2015