Diffusion of implanted nitrogen in the Cu(001) surface

LUCILA CRISTINA; LILIANA GÓMEZ; RICARDO VIDAL; JULIO FERRÓN

JOURNAL OF PHYSICS - D (APPLIED PHYSICS)

IOP PUBLISHING LTD

Año: 2010 vol. 43 p. 185302 - 185308

0022-3727

Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) was used to study the thermally activated diffusion process of low energy N+ implanted on the Cu(0 0 1) surface, a proposed model system for self-assembled nanostructures. The nitrogen diffusion was characterized as a function of the substrate temperature and the N+ implantation energy. An experiment that combines a temperature evolution followed by an AES depth profiling was done to clarify the type of diffusion. A comparison of the experimental results with kinetic Monte Carlo simulations suggests a preferential diffusion of the nitrogen to the surface followed by nitride decomposition.