Effect of Bonding Character on Electron-Irradiation-Induced Chemical Disordering and Amorphization in III-V Compounds

Abstract

Single crystals of GaSb, GaAs and InAs were irradiated with 2 MeV electrons in the [001] direction in an ultrahigh voltage electron microscope. When electron irradiations were carried out in the semiconductor compounds kept at low temperatures, chemical disordering is first induced and with continued irradiation amorphization sets in. The chemical disordering and the resulting amorphization become more difficult to occur in the sequence of the increasing ionisity (GaSb → GaAs → InAs) at a fixed low temperature.