Primary knock displacements produced

Radiation Damage. It has been known for many years that bombardment of a crystal with energetic (keV to MeV) heavy ions produces regions of lattice disorder. An implanted ion entering a soHd with an initial kinetic energy of 100 keV comes to rest in the time scale of about 10 due to both electronic and nuclear coUisions. As an ion slows down and comes to rest in a crystal, it makes a number of coUisions with the lattice atoms. In these coUisions, sufficient energy may be transferred from the ion to displace an atom from its lattice site. Lattice atoms which are displaced by an incident ion are caUed primary knock-on atoms (PKA). A PKA can in turn displace other atoms, secondary knock-ons, etc. This process creates a cascade of atomic coUisions and is coUectively referred to as the coUision, or displacement, cascade. The disorder can be directiy observed by techniques sensitive to lattice stmcture, such as electron-transmission microscopy, MeV-particle channeling, and electron diffraction. 

The second case, that of the so-called displacement spike is one in which the knocked atom receives an energy greater than 2Ei. The primary knocked atom can travel a certain length until its energy becomes smaller than 2Ei. Along its path, secondary knocked atoms may be produced. This process may be repeated, till the energy of these atoms becomes lower than 2Ed. Each of these is then the center of a thermal spike. ... 

This effect is especially important when the knock-on atom (or nucleus) is produced as the result of an elastic collision with a fast neutron (or other energetic heavy particle). The energy of the primary knock-on can then be quite high, and the cascade may be extensive. A single fast neutron in the greater than or equal to 1 MeV range can displace a few thousand atoms. Most... 

Molecular-dynamics calculations provide valuable insight into the evolution with time of defect structures created in the collision caiscade. Consider, for example, the molecular-dynamics simulations of low-energy displacement cascades in the Bll-ordered compound CuTi (Figure 7) by Zhu et al, (1992). Figure 8 shows the number of Frenkel pairs produced by a Cu primary knock-on atom (PKA) as a function of recoil energy at the end of the collisional phase (0.2 p ) and at the end of the cooling phase (2.5 ps). The number of Frenkd... 

In addition to recoil mixing, other ballistic phenomena are possible during ion irradiation and implantation. For example, enhanced atomic mixing can occur when multiple displacements of target atoms result from a single incident ion. In the multiple displacement process, an initially displaced target atom (primary recoil) continues the knock-on-atom processes, producing secondary recoil atom displacements which in turn displace additional atoms. The multiple displacement sequence of collision events is commonly referred to as a collision cascade. 

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