Temperature annealing of tracks induced by ion irradiation of graphite

✍ Scribed by J. Liu; H.J. Yao; Y.M. Sun; J.L. Duan; M.D. Hou; D. Mo; Z.G. Wang; Y.F. Jin; H. Abe; Z.C. Li; N. Sekimura

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2006
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 331 KB
• Volume: 245
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0168-583X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.nimb.2005.11.162

✦ Synopsis

Highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) samples were irradiated by Xe ions of initial kinetic energy of 3 MeV/u. The irradiations were performed at temperatures of 500 and 800 K. Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) images show that the tracks occasionally have elongated structures under high-temperature irradiation. The track creation yield at 800 K is by three orders of magnitude smaller compared to that obtained during room-temperature irradiation. STM and Raman spectra show that amorphization occurs in graphite samples irradiated at 500 K to higher fluences, but not at 800 K. The obtained experimental results clearly reveal that the irradiation under high temperature causes track annealing.