Modeling the effects of ion strike displacement damage on the 3D reciprocal space of silicon

Abstract

Silicon is the backbone to today’s modern society and used in everything from children’s toys to mission sensitive electronics in the form of semiconductors. It is because of its usefulness that silicon is extremely well studied, and has found applications in a variety of fields of study and harsh working environments.

LAMMPS is a molecular dynamics code that will be used to model displacement damage due to ion strike at the atomistic level. It also generates virtual electron diffraction patterns to investigate the impact of radiation on reciprocal space. By characterizing the changes in peak broadening and peak shifting due to macro or micro strains, the planes in real space most affected by radiation damage are determined. In this study, it was found that in general low order planes are affected the most by peak broadening. In addition, high order planes are affected the most by peak shifting.

Semiconductors see use in the depths of space and the interior of reactor containment building to name just two potential harsh working environments. In these environments, it is very important to predict the degradation exhibited by electronics due to radiation damage. This allows one to know when failure will occur or keep track of other potential problems. Currently the study of displacement damage effects on semiconductors due to ion strikes is focused on the research at the macroscale. Minimal work exists investigating the same phenomena at the microscale. This research aims to expand the available literature by modeling how diffraction peaks in reciprocal space change when a single ion strike occurs in single crystal silicon.