Statistical analysis of ripple morphology on Si surfaces due to 60keV Ar+-ions

Abstract

We report on analysis of ion-beam patterned surface morphology in terms of regularity of pattern shape and orientation, homogeneity over irradiated surface, and the effective increment in its surface area, which are critical in deciding the applications for the corresponding surface. As a case study, we have chosen Si surface, which is exposed to 60 keV Ar+-ions at different angles of incidence and ion fluence and have performed detail statistical analysis of topographic images of the patterned surfaces. By using the Scanning Probe Image Processor (SPIP) software, morphological parameters, viz. surface area ratio, texture direction index, texture aspect ratio, ratio of system correlation length to ripple wavelength, directional roughness exponents, and anisotropy ratio are calculated as functions of ion incidence angle and fluence. From angle-dependent studies, we observe that ripple patterns become more regular with increasing angle of incidence. On the other hand, fluence-dependent study of these parameters shows that ripple shapes are most regular for the fluence of 3 × 1018 ions cm-2, while ripples are most unidirectional for the fluence of 2 × 1018 ions cm-2. Our analysis method shows a route towards optimization of ion-patterned surfaces in terms of nanostructure quality or effective surface area, which is vital for applications. Further, using scaling analysis, we associate Si surfaces generated within particular angular or fluence range to different universality classes, which can help towards understanding oftheir formation mechanism.