Molecular dynamic simulation of low-energy FIB irradiation induced damage in diamond

Z Tong and ZW Xu and W Wu and XC Luo, NUCLEAR INSTRUMENTS & METHODS IN PHYSICS RESEARCH SECTION B-BEAM INTERACTIONS WITH MATERIALS AND ATOMS, 358, 38-44 (2015).

DOI: 10.1016/j.nimb.2015.05.023

In this article, a large scale multi-particle molecular dynamics (MD) simulation model was developed to study the dynamic structural changes in single crystal diamond under 5 key Ga+ irradiation in conjunction with a transmission electron microscopy (TEM) experiment. The results show that the thickness of ion-induced damaged layer (similar to 9.0 nm) obtained from experiments and simulations has good accordance, which demonstrates the high accuracy achieved by the developed MD model. Using this model, the evolution of atomic defects, the spatial distributions of implanted Ga particles and the thermal spike at the very core collision area were analysed. The local thermal recrystallizations observed during each single ion collision process and the increase of the density of the non-diamond phase (mostly sp(2) bonded) at irradiation area are fund to be the underling mechanisms responsible for ion fluence dependent amorphization of diamond observed in previous experiments. Crown Copyright (C) 2015 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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