Analysis
The degree of mixing of a film scales with the ion mass, with the intensity of any given incident ion beam, and with the duration of the impingement of the ion beam on a target. The amount of mixing is proportional to the square roots of time, mass and ion dose.
At temperatures below 100 °C for most implanted materials, ion beam mixing is essentially independent of temperature but, as temperature increases beyond that point, mixing rises exponentially with temperature. This temperature-dependence is a manifestation of incident ion beams effectively imparting the target species-dependent activation energy to the barrier layer.
Ballistic ion beam mixing can be classified into two basic subtypes, recoil mixing and cascade mixing, which take place simultaneously as a result of ion bombardment. In recoil mixing, atoms are relocated by single collision events. Recoil mixing is predominately seen at large angles as a result of soft collisions, with the number of atoms undergoing recoil implantation varying linearly with ion dose. Recoil implantation, however, is not the dominant process in ion beam mixing. Most relocated atoms are part of a collision cascade in which recoiled atoms initiate a series of lower energy lattice displacements, which is referred to as cascade mixing. Ion beam mixing can be further enhanced by heat spike effects
Ion mixing (IM) is essentially similar in result to interdiffusion, hence most models of ion mixing involve an effective diffusion coefficient that is used to characterize thickness of the reacted layer as a function of ion beam implantation over a period of time.
The diffusion model does not take into account the miscibility of substrate and layer, so for immiscible or low-miscibility systems it will overestimate the degree of mixing, while for highly miscible systems the model will underestimate the degree of mixing. Thermodynamic effects are also not considered in this basic interdiffusion equation, but can be modeled by equations that consider the enthalpies of mixing and the molar fractions of the target species, and one can thereby develop a thermodynamic effective diffusion coefficient reflecting temperature effects (which become pronounced at high temperatures).
Read more about this topic: Ion Beam Mixing
Famous quotes containing the word analysis:
“... the big courageous acts of life are those one never hears of and only suspects from having been through like experience. It takes real courage to do battle in the unspectacular task. We always listen for the applause of our co-workers. He is courageous who plods on, unlettered and unknown.... In the last analysis it is this courage, developing between man and his limitations, that brings success.”
—Alice Foote MacDougall (1867–1945)
“Analysis as an instrument of enlightenment and civilization is good, in so far as it shatters absurd convictions, acts as a solvent upon natural prejudices, and undermines authority; good, in other words, in that it sets free, refines, humanizes, makes slaves ripe for freedom. But it is bad, very bad, in so far as it stands in the way of action, cannot shape the vital forces, maims life at its roots. Analysis can be a very unappetizing affair, as much so as death.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)
“The spider-mind acquires a faculty of memory, and, with it, a singular skill of analysis and synthesis, taking apart and putting together in different relations the meshes of its trap. Man had in the beginning no power of analysis or synthesis approaching that of the spider, or even of the honey-bee; but he had acute sensibility to the higher forces.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)