Application of MeV Ion Implantation in the Formation of Nano-Metallic Clusters in Silica

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe implantation of metal ions into photorefractive materials followed by thermal annealing leads to an increase in resonance optical absorption as well as an enhancement of the nonlinear optical properties. We have implanted ions of Au (3.6 MeV), Ag (1.5 MeV) and Cu (2.0 MeV) into pure silica followed by careful heat treatment. Using optical absorption spectrophotometry and rutherford backscattering spectrometry we have measured the cluster size for each heat treatment temperature and determined the activation energies for their formation. The third order electric susceptibility for silica with 2 nm gold clusters has been determined by Z-scan to be 65×10−8 esu.