Lateral Deformation of a Silicon Crystal Surface Structure Induced by Low-Fluence Ion-Beam Irradiation

The increasing importance of the volume expansion effect on crystalline materials induced by ion-beam irradiation has drawn much attention because of its applications. For example, the expansion effect is used as a good probe to investigate any crystalline-amorphous (c-a) phase change and/or damage. Because the expansion rate and its depth profile can be controlled by means of the irradiation parameters, such as fluence and energy, the deformation of structures on the micro-/nano-meter scale is expected. The fluence needed to achieve deformation is relatively low, and it is expected that irradiation-induced damage is reduced compared with that induced by conventional ion-beam fabrication. Therefore, this expansion effect is a potential method to improve the ion-beam technology employed to fabricate complicated 3-dimensional structures requested in actively developing industrial fields, such as MEMS/NEMS.