Stress-induced patterns in ion-irradiated Silicon: a model based on anisotropic plastic flow

TL;DR

This paper introduces a model explaining stress-induced pattern formation in ion-irradiated silicon, based on anisotropic plastic flow, which accurately predicts observed pattern wavelengths and aligns with experimental data.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel model based on ion-induced anisotropic plastic flow that accurately predicts pattern wavelengths in ion-irradiated silicon.

Findings

Model agrees with experimentally observed pattern wavelengths.

Qualitative agreement with ripple propagation speed data.

Comparison with other stress mechanisms discussed.

Abstract

We present a model for the effect of stress on thin amorphous films that develop atop ion-irradiated silicon, based on the mechanism of ion-induced anisotropic plastic flow. Using only parameters directly measured or known to high accuracy, the model exhibits remarkably good agreement with the wavelengths of experimentally-observed patterns, and agrees qualitatively with limited data on ripple propagation speed. The predictions of the model are discussed in the context of other mechanisms recently theorized to explain the wavelengths, including extensive comparison with an alternate model of stress.