Experimental study and MD simulation of damage formation in GaN under atomic and molecular ion irradiation

Abstract Structure damage formation in GaN under light P and heavy Ag monatomic and small molecular PF 4 ions is studied by RBS/C and classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Molecules are found to be most efficient in surface amorphization, whereas in the sample bulk Ag ions produce more damage than others. Cumulative MD simulations reveal nonlinear increase of big defect cluster generation in dense collision cascades formed by molecules at the surface vicinity and along most part of Ag ion path. Creation of these big defect clusters intensifies all processes responsible for stable damage formation, in particular, it is one of the reasons of experimentally observed peculiarities of damage production.