Anisotropy of disorder accumulation and recovery in 6H–SiC irradiated with Au2+ ions at 140K

Abstract Single crystal 〈0 0 0 1〉-oriented 6H–SiC was irradiated with Au2+ ions to fluences of 0.032, 0.058 and 0.105 ions/nm2 at 140 K and was subsequently annealed at various temperatures up to 500 K. The relative disorder on both the Si and C sublattices has been determined simultaneously using in situ D+ ion channeling along the 〈0 0 0 1〉 and 〈 2 2 ¯ 0 1 〉 axes. A higher level of disorder on both the Si and C sublattices is observed along the 〈 2 2 ¯ 0 1 〉. There is a preferential C disordering and more C interstitials are aligned with 〈0 0 0 1〉. Room-temperature recovery along 〈 2 2 ¯ 0 1 〉 occurs, which is associated with the 〈0 0 0 1〉-aligned interstitials that annihilate due to close-pair recombination. Disorder recovery between 400 and 500 K is primarily attributed to annihilation of interstitials that are misaligned with 〈0 0 0 1〉 and to epitaxial crystallization. Effects of stacking order in SiC on disorder accumulation are insignificant; however, noticeable differences of low-temperature recovery in Au2+-irradiated 6H–SiC and 4H–SiC are observed.