Materials Modifications Using Ion Beam Technology

It is already demonstrated that ion beam technology are playing a vital role in understanding unique physical phenomena as well as in industrial applications. Recently, the focus has been shifted in particular to material-science driven applications with a special focus on nanostructures creation and modifications. Our recent previous work in this field showed for the first time that slow highly charged ions (HCI), as a promising nanotechnological tool, can be used for the fabrication of stable nanostructures. After that, we and other groups showed that this promising tool is used efficiently for the fabrication of various types of nanostructures. However, due to the complexity of the interaction processes as well as the limited experimental results, the creation mechanism of the ion-induced nanostructures was a kind of puzzle of missing pieces. In our project, we will add some of the missing pieces by a comprehensive study of the surface nanostructuring induced by HCI in new alkaline-earth fluoride single crystals. Furthermore, we will study the modifications induced by highly energetic (swift) heavy ions in the same materials. The irradiation with swift heavy ions (SHI) will provide the possibility of modifying not only the surface of the investigated materials but also the bulk. The ion beam parameters (e.g. charge state, kinetic energy, and fluence ) will be used as knobs to tune the shape and mechanical properties of SWCNTs is the impinging ions fluence and the kinetic energy deposited locally by the projectile. In addition, we introduce a theoretical approach for understanding mechanisms involved in the creation of the induced surface nanostructures and the modifications in the bulk. The model explains how the HCI and SHI induced localized electronic excitations lead to the observed material modifications. These results are not only of high importance for the investigation of exciting physical phenomena, concerning ion-solid interaction processes, but also for promising nanotechnological applications, in controlled way and without other modifying treatments as in the conventional lithographic methods.