Effects Produced by the Ionic Bombardment of Germanium

Specimens of pure single-crystal germanium and of polycrystalline germanium with varying amounts of impurity have been bombarded with positive ions of a number of elements having energies from 5 to 90 keV. The changes in some electrical properties of the specimen caused by this bombardment have been measured. In all cases it was found that maximum change was caused by a bombardment equivalent to about 6μC cm-2. No changes were observed with ion energies less than about 20 keV. The results are consistent with the assumption that bombardment produces a p-type layer whether the original specimen was p-type or n-type. The thickness of this layer has been measured for various energies of the incident ions.