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1. Mechanical Response of He-Implanted Amorphous SiOC/Crystalline Fe Nanolaminates

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-41226-w  

   Zare, A. ; Su, Q. ; Gigax, J. ; Harriman, T. A. ; Nastasi, M. ; Shao, L. ; Lucca, D. A. ( March 2019 , Scientific Reports)

   This study investigates the microstructural evolution and mechanical response of sputter-deposited amorphous silicon oxycarbide (SiOC)/crystalline Fe nanolaminates, a single layer SiOC film, and a single layer Fe film subjected to ion implantation at room temperature to obtain a maximum He concentration of 5 at. %. X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy indicated no evidence of implantation-induced phase transformation or layer breakdown in the nanolaminates. Implantation resulted in the formation of He bubbles and an increase in the average size of the Fe grains in the individual Fe layers of the nanolaminates and the single layer Fe film, but the bubble density and grain size were found to be smaller in the former. By reducing the thicknesses of individual layers in the nanolaminates, bubble density and grain size were further decreased. No He bubbles were observed in the SiOC layers of the nanolaminates and the single layer SiOC film. Nanoindentation and scanning probe microscopy revealed an increase in the hardness of both single layer SiOC and Fe films after implantation. For the nanolaminates, changes in hardness were found to depend on the thicknesses of the individual layers, where reducing the layer thickness to 14 nm resulted in mitigation of implantation-induced hardening.

    

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2. Controlling neutral and charged excitons in MoS 2 with defects

   https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2019.404  

   Burns, Kory ; Tan, Anne Marie ; Gabriel, Adam ; Shao, Lin ; Hennig, Richard G. ; Aitkaliyeva, Assel ( April 2020 , Journal of Materials Research)

   In this contribution, we use heavy ion irradiation and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy to demonstrate that defects can be used to tailor the optical properties of two-dimensional molybdenum disulfide (MoS 2 ). Sonicated MoS 2 flakes were deposited onto Si/SiO 2 substrate and subjected to 3 MeV Au 2+ ion irradiation at room temperature to fluences ranging from 1 × 10 12 to 1 × 10 16 cm −2 . We demonstrate that irradiation-induced defects can control optical excitations in the inner core shell of MoS 2 by binding A 1s - and B 1s -excitons, and correlate the exciton peaks to the specific defects introduced with irradiation. The systematic increase of ion fluence produced different defect densities in MoS 2 , which were estimated using B/A exciton ratios and progressively increased with ion fluence. We show that up to the fluences of 1 × 10 14 cm −2 , the MoS 2 lattice remains crystalline and defect densities can be controlled, whereas at higher fluences (≥1 × 10 15 cm −2 ), the large number of introduced defects distorts the excitonic structure of the material. In addition to controlling excitons, defects were used to split bound and free trions, and we demonstrate that at higher fluences (1 × 10 15 cm −2 ), both free and bound trions can be observed in the same PL spectrum. Most importantly, the lifetimes of these states exceed trion and exciton lifetimes in pristine MoS 2 , and PL spectra of irradiated MoS 2 remains unchanged weeks after irradiation experiments. Thus, this work demonstrated the feasibility of engineering novel optical behaviors in low-dimensional materials using heavy ion irradiation. The insights gained from this study will aid in understanding the many-body interactions in low-dimensional materials and may ultimately be used to develop novel materials for optoelectronic applications. 

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3. Point defect creation by proton and carbon irradiation of α-Ga 2 O 3

   https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0100359  

   Polyakov, Alexander Y. ; Nikolaev, Vladimir I. ; Meshkov, Igor N. ; Siemek, Krzysztof ; Lagov, Petr B. ; Yakimov, Eugene B. ; Pechnikov, Alexei I. ; Orlov, Oleg S. ; Sidorin, Alexey A. ; Stepanov, Sergey I. ; et al ( July 2022 , Journal of Applied Physics)

   Films of α-Ga 2 O 3 grown by Halide Vapor Phase Epitaxy (HVPE) were irradiated with protons at energies of 330, 400, and 460 keV with fluences 6 × 10 15  cm −2 and with 7 MeV C 4+ ions with a fluence of 1.3 × 10 13  cm −2 and characterized by a suite of measurements, including Photoinduced Transient Current Spectroscopy (PICTS), Thermally Stimulated Current (TSC), Microcathodoluminescence (MCL), Capacitance–frequency (C–f), photocapacitance and Admittance Spectroscopy (AS), as well as by Positron Annihilation Spectroscopy (PAS). Proton irradiation creates a conducting layer near the peak of the ion distribution and vacancy defects distribution and introduces deep traps at E c -0.25, 0.8, and 1.4 eV associated with Ga interstitials, gallium–oxygen divacancies V Ga –V O , and oxygen vacancies V O . Similar defects were observed in C implanted samples. The PAS results can also be interpreted by assuming that the observed changes are due to the introduction of V Ga and V Ga –V O . 

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4. Heavy ion irradiation induced failure of gallium nitride high electron mobility transistors: effects of in-situ biasing

   https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6463/accfa7  

   Rasel, Md Abu Jafar ; Schoell, Ryan ; Al-Mamun, Nahid Sultan ; Hattar, Khalid ; Harris, C. Thomas ; Haque, Aman ; Wolfe, Douglas E. ; Ren, Fan ; Pearton, Stephen J. ( May 2023 , Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics)

   While radiation is known to degrade AlGaN/GaN high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs), the question remains on the extent of damage governed by the presence of an electrical field in the device. In this study, we induced displacement damage in HEMTs in both ON and OFF states by irradiating with 2.8 MeV Au⁴⁺ion to fluence levels ranging from$1.72\times {10}^{10}$to$3.745\times {10}^{13}$ions cm⁻², or 0.001–2 displacement per atom (dpa). Electrical measurement is donein situ, and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), energy dispersive x-ray (EDX), geometrical phase analysis (GPA), and micro-Raman are performed on the highest fluence of Au⁴⁺irradiated devices. The selected heavy ion irradiation causes cascade damage in the passivation, AlGaN, and GaN layers and at all associated interfaces. After just 0.1 dpa, the current density in the ON-mode device deteriorates by two orders of magnitude, whereas the OFF-mode device totally ceases to operate. Moreover, six orders of magnitude increase in leakage current and loss of gate control over the 2-dimensional electron gas channel are observed. GPA and Raman analysis reveal strain relaxation after a 2 dpa damage level in devices. Significant defects and intermixing of atoms near AlGaN/GaN interfaces and GaN layer are found from HRTEM and EDX analyses, which can substantially alter device characteristics and result in complete failure.

    

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5. Irradiation of Transition Metal Dichalcogenides Using a Focused Ion Beam: Controlled Single‐Atom Defect Creation

   https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.201904668  

   Thiruraman, Jothi Priyanka ; Masih Das, Paul ; Drndić, Marija ( August 2019 , Advanced Functional Materials)

   Manipulation and structural modifications of 2D materials for nanoelectronic and nanofluidic applications remain obstacles to their industrial‐scale implementation. Here, it is demonstrated that a 30 kV focused ion beam can be utilized to engineer defects and tailor the atomic, optoelectronic, and structural properties of monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs). Aberration‐corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy is used to reveal the presence of defects with sizes from the single atom to 50 nm in molybdenum (MoS₂) and tungsten disulfide (WS₂) caused by irradiation doses from 10¹³to 10¹⁶ions cm⁻². Irradiated regions across millimeter‐length scales of multiple devices are sampled and analyzed at the atomic scale in order to obtain a quantitative picture of defect sizes and densities. Precise dose value calculations are also presented, which accurately capture the spatial distribution of defects in irradiated 2D materials. Changes in phononic and optoelectronic material properties are probed via Raman and photoluminescence spectroscopy. The dependence of defect properties on sample parameters such as underlying substrate and TMD material is also investigated. The results shown here lend the way to the fabrication and processing of TMD nanodevices.

    

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