Micrographs of the micro-particle in sapphire by ion implantation

Sapphire crystals with (0001), (101¯0), (011¯2) and (112¯0) orientations were implanted by Cu+, Nb+ or CuCl+ ions of 300–380 keV, (5–50) × 1016 ions/cm2 at room temperature or 100 K. These samples were then annealed at the temperature of 500 to 1100 °C in reducing atmosphere. In this paper, the morphologies are presented for the surfaces and for the precipitates within the near-surfaces of the ion implanted sapphire samples after annealing. The AFM shows that the island like distribution morphologies with jagged and craggy characteristics can be seen for the ion implanted sapphire before annealing, while the morphologies become smooth with the boundaries, and the number of the islands decreased after annealing. Micro-particles of precipitates can be found for all the sapphire samples implanted with different ion species after annealing. Different sizes of precipitates can be found in the same sample. The growth process of these precipitates can be estimated based on the particles observation. The factors which affect shape, size as well as distribution of the precipitates are discussed in this paper.