Formation of ripple pattern on silicon surface by grazing incidence ion beam sputtering

Abstract

Off-normal low energy ion beam sputtering of solid surfaces often leads to morphological instabilities resulting in the spontaneous formation of ripple structures in nanometer length scales. In the case of Si surfaces at ambient temperature, ripple formation is found to take place normally at lower incident angles with the wave vector parallel to the ion beam direction. The absence of ripple pattern on Si surface at larger angles is due to the dominance of ion beam polishing effect. We have shown that a gentle chemical roughening of the starting surface morphology can initiate ripple pattern under grazing incidence ion beam sputtering, where the ripple wave vector is perpendicular to the ion beam direction. The characteristics of the perpendicular mode ripples are studied as a function of pristine surface roughness and ion fluence. The quality of the morphological structure is assessed from the analysis of ion induced topological defects.