Oxygen migration during epitaxial regrowth in Cs[sup +]-irradiated α-quartz investigated by means of nuclear reaction analysis.

The migration of oxygen in ion-beam-amorphized c-SiO[sub 2] (α-quartz) was investigated by means of nuclear reaction analysis using the resonant reaction [sup 18]O(p,α)[sup 15]N for oxygen depth profiling. Only very small amounts of oxygen were observed to diffuse in crystalline or in Xe[sup +]-ion beam-amorphized α-quartz after high-temperature annealing. However, a dramatic migration of oxygen occurs in Cs[sup +]-implanted α-quartz in the same temperature range (600-900 °C), where Cs diffuses out of the amorphized layer and epitaxial recrystallization occurs. These results point out to a strong correlation of all these processes. A mechanism to explain the observed indiffusion of [sup 18]O is proposed and is related to the Cs migration and the topological modification to achieve epitaxial regrowth of the SiO[sub 2] matrix. © 2000 American Institute of Physics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]