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Amorphization of nanocrystalline 3C−SiC irradiated with Si+ ions

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Abstract

Irradiation-induced amorphization in nanocrystalline and single-crystal 3C-SiC has been studied using 1 MeV Si+ ions under identical irradiation conditions at room temperature and 400 K. The disordering behavior has been characterized using in situ ion channeling and ex situ x-ray diffraction methods. The results show that, compared with single-crystal 3C-SiC, full amorphization of small 3C-SiC grains (~3.8 nm in size) at room temperature occurs at a slightly lower dose. Grain size decreases with increasing dose until a fully amorphized state is attained. The amorphization dose increases at 400 K relative to room temperature. However, at 400 K, the amorphization dose for 2.0 nm grains is about a factor of 4 and 8 smaller than for 3.0 nm grains and bulk single-crystal 3C-SiC, respectively. The behavior is attributed to the preferential amorphization at the interface.

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Correspondence to W. Jiang.

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This author was an editor of this journal during the review and decision stage. For the JMR policy on review and publication of manuscripts authored by editors, please refer to http://www.mrs. org/jmr_policy

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Jiang, W., Wang, H., Kim, I. et al. Amorphization of nanocrystalline 3C−SiC irradiated with Si+ ions. Journal of Materials Research 25, 2341–2348 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2010.0311

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2010.0311

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