Surface chemical disorder and lattice strain of GaN implanted by 3-MeV Fe¹⁰⁺ ions

Chemical disorder on the surface and lattice strain in GaN implanted by Fe¹⁰⁺ ions are investigated. In this study, 3-MeV Fe¹⁰⁺ ions fluence ranges from 1×10¹³ ions/cm² to 5×10¹⁵ ions/cm² at room temperature. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, high-resolution x-ray diffraction, and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy were used to characterize lattice disorder. The transition of Ga-N bonds to oxynitride bonding is caused by ion sputtering. The change of tensile strain out-of-plane with fluence was measured. Lattice disorder due to the formation of stacking faults prefers to occur on the basal plane.