Ion implantation, luminescence, and cluster growth in silica layers

To activate silica optically our investigations are extended to ion implantation, mainly to overstoichiometric injection or isoelectronic substitution of the both constituents silicon or oxygen, i.e. by ions of the group IV (C, Si, Ge, Sn, Pb) or the group VI (O, S, Se). Such implantation produce new luminescence bands in silica layers, partially with optical electronic–vibronic transitions and respective multimodal spectra. In this context, special interest should be directed to low-dimension nanocluster formation in silica layers. Cathodoluminescence, high resolution transmission (HR-TEM) and scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM), and energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX) have been used to investigate Si and Ge cluster formation in amorphous silicon dioxide layers and their respective luminescence behavior.