Ion beam-induced changes in optical properties of MgO

摘要

The implantation of Ag into MgO (100) single crystals, followed by thermal annealing at 1,100 C, leads to dramatic changes in their optical properties. The changes in the optical properties are due to the presence of small Ag clusters which are formed in the annealed samples. The small Ag clusters are obtained by thermal annealing of the implanted MgO crystals between 600 C and 1,100 C to investigate the changes in cluster sizes and to correlate with changes in their optical properties. Sample characterization is carried out using optical spectrophotometry to confirm the effective presence of Ag clusters and Rutherford Backscattering Spectrometry (RBS) to study the profile of Ag clusters.