Ionization-induced annealing of defects in 3C–SiC: Ion channeling and positron annihilation spectroscopy investigations

There is a growing interest in ionization-induced defect recovery in intermediate energy (a few 100s of keV to a few 10 s of MeV) regime, where ionization and defect production occur simultaneously. In the present work, damage recovery from ion irradiation in the intermediate energy regime is studied by conducting two-step ion irradiation in 3C–SiC. The first step involves low-energy ion irradiation using 200 keV Si + ions to promote defect production. Subsequently, the samples are irradiated with 14 MeV Si + ions, which predominantly lose energy by electronic stopping power. Rutherford backscattering spectrometry/channeling (RBS/C) spectra results reveal that upon 200 keV Si + ion irradiation, an amorphous layer is formed at 0.6dpa; however, with sequential ion irradiation, the backscattering yield at the peak damage region decreased significantly, indicating damage recovery. The results are also consistent with the positron beam studies where recovery is evident by the decrease in S -parameter at the peak damage region. Graphical abstract