High fluence nitrogen implantation into Zr with energy scanning mode

In order to study effects of the ion implantation with a distributed energy and its energy scanning mode on the surface structure and the depth profile, dynamic Monte Carlo simulations were carried out for nitrogen implantations to Zr with uniform energy distribution from 15 to 85 keV, with three energy scanning modes. The modes were: (a) the energy increasing mode from the lowest energy to the highest energy in steps of 1 keV; (b) the energy decreasing mode from the highest to the lowest energy; and (c) the energy sweeping mode of 100 times between the lowest and the highest energies. The calculated results were compared with the experimental results obtained for the implantation with the energy distribution and the energy scanning modes. The depth profiles and the retained fluences of the implanted nitrogen agree well with the experimental results obtained by resonant nuclear reaction analysis. The displacement per atom in the outermost surface layer was in the order of(a), (c), and (b). The displacement of (a) was lower than that of the mono-energetic implantation at 50 keV. The results were consistent with the experimental surface topography observed by scanning electron microscope.