Ripple rotation on ion sputtered Si (100)

• Main Authors: Qian, H. X., Zhou, W.
• Other Authors: School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/85520; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/17279
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Controllable process of ion sputtered rippling is of significance for the generation of nanostructures on technologically important Si surface. Si(100) was irradiated with 30 kV focused Ga+ ions at various incidence angles. It was found that ripple only formed at 30° incidence angle. At low ion dose, ripple with wavelength of 400 nm was oriented perpendicular to the ion beam direction. However ripple with larger wavelength of 1 μm was rotated with increasing ion dose. The orientation of rotated ripple was observed to be still dependent on the ion beam direction. Such rotated ripple structures can be explained by the nonlinear sputter patterning model.