A study of nitrogen implantation in aluminium—a comparison of experimental results and computer simulation

It is known that nitrogen ion implantation into aluminium leads to the formation of AlN. The aim of this work is to investigate the effect of ion energy, current density and dose on low energy nitrogen ion implantation. For this purpose, aluminium bulk samples, with a purity of 99.9%, were implanted with molecular nitrogen ions Nq2 . at energies of 2, 3, 4 and 5 keV with a current densities of 1 mA cmy2 and 5 mA cmy2 for each ion energy. The ion doses for these experiments range from 6=1016 and 3=1017 ions cmy2. The concentration profiles of nitrogen ions implanted into aluminium were measured by X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy XPS.and these were compared with the profiles created using computer simulation models SUSPRE wSUSPRE, Surrey University Sputter Profile Resolution from Energy deposition program V 1.4., 1987xand SATVALwJ. Sielanko, W. Szyszko, Surf. Sci. 161 1985.101; J. Sielanko, W. Szyszko, Nucl. Instr. Meth. Phys. Res. B 16 1986. 101x. The chemical composition and chemical structure of the implanted aluminium were investigated by XPS and Angle Resolved X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy ARXPS.. q1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved