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The influence of the charge state q on surface modifications induced by the impact of individual fast, heavy ions on muscovite mica was investigated. Beams of 593 MeV 197Auq+ with well-defined initial charge states over a relatively broad range of values (30 to 51) and at different irradiation geometries were used. At normal incidence, the impact features are rounded protrusions (hillocks) with ≳20 nm in diameter. At grazing angles, besides the hillocks, craters and elongated tails (up to 350 nm-long) extending along the direction of ion penetration are produced. It is shown that the impact features at normal incidence depend strongly on the initial charge state of the projectiles. This dependence is very weak at grazing angles as the ion reaches the equilibrium charge state closer to the surface. At normal ion incidence, the hillock volume scales with q3.3±0.6. This dependence stems largely from the increase in the hillock height, as a weak dependence of the diameter was observed.

Journal of applied physics 130(10), 105303 (2021). doi:10.1063/5.0060445, The effects of ion irradiation on the surface and the subsurface of synthetic diamonds were characterized by using optical microscopy, atomic force microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, x-ray reflectivity, electron backscatter diffraction, and resistivity measurements. Irradiation experiments with 14 MeV Au$^{6+}$ ions with fluences up to 2.4 �� 10$^{15}$ ions/cm$^2$ were carried out on synthetic single crystal diamonds, grown either at high pressure or by chemical vapor deposition, and on polycrystalline samples with high boron concentrations. We show that the ion irradiation-induced changes to the surface and subsurface of diamonds are rather complex and, especially in the first few nanometers, more severe than generally considered. We establish a model describing the changes in density, defect concentration, topology, crystallinity, and bonding from the surface down to the first few micrometers of the irradiated diamond, Published by American Inst. of Physics, Melville, NY

The stopping power and straggling of backscattered protons on nanometric Pt films were measured at low to medium energies (60-250 keV) by using the medium-energy ion scattering technique. The stopping power results are in good agreement with the most recent measurements by Primetzhofer Phy s. Rev. B 86, 094102 (2012) and are well described by the free electron gas model at low projectile energies. Nevertheless, the straggling results are strongly underestimated by well-established formulas up to a factor of two. Alternatively, we propose a model for the energy-loss straggling that takes into account the inhomogeneous electron-gas response, based on the electron-loss function of the material, along with bunching effects. This approach yields remarkable agreement with the experimental data, indicating that the observed enhancement in energy-loss straggling is due to bunching effects in an inhomogeneous electron system. Nonlinear effects are of minor importance for the energy-loss straggling.

A comprehensive study of sillenite Bi12SiO20 single-crystal properties, including elastic stiffness and piezoelectric coefficients, dielectric permittivity, thermal expansion and molar heat capacity, is presented. Brillouin-interferometry measurements (up to 27 GPa), which were performed at high pressures for the first time, and ab initio calculations based on density functional theory (up to 50 GPa) show the stability of the sillenite structure in the investigated pressure range, in agreement with previous studies. Elastic stiffness coefficients c 11 and c 12 are found to increase continuously with pressure while c 44 increases slightly for lower pressures and remains nearly constant above 15 GPa. Heat-capacity measurements were performed with a quasi-adiabatic calorimeter employing the relaxation method between 2 K and 395 K. No phase transition could be observed in this temperature interval. Standard molar entropy, enthalpy change and Debye temperature are extracted from the data. The results are found to be roughly half of the previous values reported in the literature. The discrepancy is attributed to the overestimation of the Debye temperature which was extracted from high-temperature data. Additionally, Debye temperatures obtained from mean sound velocities derived by Voigt-Reuss averaging are in agreement with our heat-capacity results. Finally, a complete set of electromechanical coefficients was deduced from the application of resonant ultrasound spectroscopy between 103 K and 733 K. No discontinuities in the temperature dependence of the coefficients are observed. High-temperature (up to 1100 K) resonant ultrasound spectra recorded for Bi12 MO20 crystals revealed strong and reversible acoustic dissipation effects at 870 K, 960 K and 550 K for M = Si, Ge and Ti, respectively. Resonances with small contributions from the elastic shear stiffness c 44 and the piezoelectric stress coefficient e 123 are almost unaffected by this dissipation.

Arsenic profiles in plasma doped silicon wafers were traced by scattering of H+ and H-2(+) ions at medium energies. Two wafers were doped with the same bias, gas pressure, total implanted dose and AsH3 concentration. After implantation, the wafers were submitted to industrial cleaning processes, resulting in the formation of a surface SiO2 layer, and one wafer was subjected to an additional thermal treatment. Scattering spectra of single and molecular ion beams with the same energy per nucleon and charge state differed only by the energy broadening due to the break-up of the molecule, allowing depth profiling by calculation of the dwell time before the backscattering collision. For the SiO2 layers of these samples a density reduction of, on average, 13% was observed, compared to thermally grown SiO2. In addition, the arsenic depth-profile determined were in close agreement with independent findings obtained by electron techniques.

Controlling the size and shape of metallic colloids is crucial for a number of nanotechnological applications ranging from medical diagnosis to electronics. Yet, achieving tunability of morphological changes at the nanoscale is technically difficult and the structural modifications made on nanoparticles generally are irreversible. Here, we present a simple nonchemical method for controlling the size of metallic colloids in a reversible manner. Our strategy consists of applying hydrostatic pressure on a Ca cationic sublattice embedded in the irradiated matrix of CaF2 containing a large concentration of defects. Application of our method to CaF2 along with in situ optical absorption of the Ca plasmon shows that the radii of the Ca nanoparticles can be reduced with an almost constant rate of −1.2 nm/GPa up to a threshold pressure of ∼9.4 GPa. We demonstrate recovery of the original nanoparticles upon decompression of the irradiated matrix. The mechanisms for reversible nanocolloid-size variation are analyzed with first-principles simulations. We show that a pressure-driven increase in the binding energy between fluorine centers is responsible for the observed nanoparticle shrinkage. We argue that the same method can be used to generate other metallic colloids (Li, K, Sr, and Cs) with tailored dimensions by simply selecting an appropriate matrix., J.R.-F. and V.M. acknowledge the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities for the Juan de la Cierva program IJCI-2014-20513 and FJCI-2016-27921, respectively. C.C. acknowledges support from the Australian Research Council under the Future Fellowship funding scheme (No. FT140100135). Computational resources and technical assistance were provided by the Australian Government and the Government of Western Australia through the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) and Magnus under the National Computational Merit Allocation Scheme and The Pawsey Supercomputing Centre. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 829161.