The study of structural properties of 100 keV hydrogen ion implanted semi-insulating GaAs single crystals

100 keV hydrogen ion implantation has been carried out on undoped semi-insulating (100) gallium arsenide single crystals for various ion doses at room temperature. The structural properties due to high dose, low energy hydrogen ion implantation has been investigated using X-ray double crystal diffractometry (DCD) analysis, Rutherford backscattering spectrometry and channeling (RBS/C) experiments and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analysis. By using DCD analysis, the value of elastic lattice strain for the ion doses of 1x10(16), 1x10(18) ions/cm(2) has been estimated to be 2.1x10(-3) and 3.2x10(-3), respectively. The RBS spectra in the channeling mode for the high dose implantations (10(17) and 10(18) ions/cm(2)) show a high yield indicating a highly damaged region near the range of the implanted hydrogen ions, Particularly, for the dose 10(18) ions/cm(2), a heavily damaged region at the surface can be observed. The TEM results evidenced that no amorphisation occurred for the dose 10(18) ions/cm(2). From TEM characterisation, it is also observed that there are no hydrogen bubbles present in the implanted region. But small dislocation loops have been identified. The projected range of implanted hydrogen ions and the thickness of the implanted layer obtained by RBS and TEM analysis are compared with the TRIM calculations. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.