Ion track formation in low temperature silicon dioxide

✍ Scribed by F. Bergamini; M. Bianconi; S. Cristiani; L. Gallerani; A. Nubile; S. Petrini; S. Sugliani

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2008
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 811 KB
• Volume: 266
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0168-583X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.nimb.2008.03.058

✦ Synopsis

Low temperature silicon dioxide layers (LTO), deposited on crystalline silicon substrates, and thermally densified at 750 °C for 90 min or 900 °C for 30 min, jointly with thermally grown silicon dioxide layers, were irradiated with low fluence 11 MeV Ti ions. A selective chemical etch of the latent tracks generated by the passage of swift ions was performed by wet or vapour HF solution. The wet process produced conically shaped holes, while the vapour procedure generated almost cylindrical nanopores. In both cases thermal SiO 2 showed a lower track etching velocity V t , but with increasing the densification temperature of the LTO samples, the V t differences reduced. LTO proved to be suitable for wet and vapour ion track formation, and, as expected, for higher densification temperatures, its etching behaviour approached that of thermal silicon dioxide.