Temperature of thermal spikes in amorphous silicon nitride films produced by 1.11 MeV C603+ impacts.

Gold nanoparticles with an average diameter of 3.6 nm were deposited on amorphous silicon nitride (a-SiN) films. These samples were irradiated with 1.11 MeV C 60 3+ ions to a fluence of ∼5 × 10 10 ions/cm 2 and observed using transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The ion tracks were clearly seen as bright spots and the gold nanoparticles disappeared from a surface area with a diameter of ∼20 nm around each ion track. The disappeared nanoparticles were collected by a foil placed in front of the sample. Gold particles of circular shape with a diameter of several nm were observed on the collector foil using TEM, suggesting that the gold nanoparticles were emitted as liquid droplets from the a-SiN film upon impact of the C 60 ion. In view of the previous molecular dynamics simulations (Anders et al., 2009), this indicates that the surface temperature rises above the melting point of gold in the region with a diameter of ∼20 nm around the ion impact position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]