LOW-TEMPERATURE EPITAXIAL REGROWTH OF MERCURY IMPLANTED SAPPHIRE

Hg ions were implanted into sapphire at room temperature and 80 keV en ergy to a fluence of 1 x 10(15) Hg+/cm(2). This fluence was enough to produce an amorphous surface layer. The annealing behaviour was studie d combining RES/channeling and hyperfine interaction techniques. Surpr isingly, the RES/channeling results show then is an epitaxial regrowth of the damaged layer after annealing at 800 degrees C for 20 min, Alt hough some of the implanted Hg segregates to the surface during the ep itaxial regrowth, a significant fraction is incorporated into regular sites along the c-axis. The hyperfine interactions results, obtained a fter implantation of a dose of 5 x 10(12) Hg+/cm(2), show that a small fraction of Hg is probably bound to oxygen, This result is in agreeme nt with the RES/channeling measurements which also show that the syste m formed after annealing is stable even at high temperatures.