Energy dependent wavelength of the ion induced nanoscale ripple

Abstract

Wavelength variation of ion beam induced nanoscale ripple structure has received much attention recently due to its possible application in nanotechnology. We present here results of Ar$^+$ bombarded Si in the energy range 50 to 140 keV to demonstrate that with beam scanning the ripple wavelength increases with ion energy and decreases with energy for irradiation without ion beam scanning. An expression for the energy dependence of ripple wavelength is proposed taking into simultaneous effect of thermally activated surface diffusion and ion induced effective surface diffusion.