Experimental study demonstrates that chemically active carbon ions drive nanoscale ripple formation on silicon, indicating impurity-induced chemical effects dominate over curvature-dependent erosion.
We report a comparative study of nano-pattern formations on a carbon film and a smooth Si(100) surface following inert and chemically active ion bombardment. For the case of carbon film, patterns could be formed both by inert (Ar+) and self (C+) ion bombardment with the former producing ripples at relatively lower fluence. In contrast, bombardment by inert Ar+ failed to form the nano patterns on Si surface, while bombardment by the same energy C+ generated the ripples. Thus, impurity induced chemical effect seems to be crucial rather than the Bradley-Harper or Carter-Vishnyakov effects for destabilizing the surface for ripple formation.
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Bhattacharjee et al. (2013) studied this question.
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