Annealing studies of ion-implanted gaas in the 40–300 K range

An investigation of the annealing characteristics of ion-implanted (40 keV N+, As+, Sb+ and Bi+) GaAs at 40 K has been performed in the 40–300°K temperature range using high resolution Rutherford backscattering-channelling of 2 MeV He+ ions. Isochronal annealing studies of 40 keV N+ and As+ implants at 40 K to fluences below the amorphization threshold showed that annealing starts at ∼100 K and proceeds monotonically up to 300 K, resulting in fractional disorder recoveries as high as 75 %. The annealing results suggest simpler defect formation and migration for damage produced by lighter ions and comparatively more direct impact amorphization for heavy ion damage with still a large simpler defect component (∼50 %) which may be annealed. The implications of this, below room temperature, disorder recovery in the interpretation of existing data is discussed.