Infrared studies on ion irradiated quartz

Abstract

Damage produced in α- and fused quartz bombarded with low energy (~ 100 keV) D⁺, He⁺ and Ar⁺ ions, has been studied by observing the changes in their spectrum. Besides bulk reflectivity, the attenuated total reflection spectrum has also been studied, the latter with a view to obtaining the surface polariton frequencies. It is observed that for the same fluence, the changes following D⁺ irradiation are much higher compared to that for Ar⁺ irradiation. The variation of the surface polariton frequency in α-quartz with the damage energy deposited has the same trend as observed earlier for refractive index. Some annealing studies have also been performed in argon-irradiated samples. These studies indicate that whereas in fused quartz the damaged layer recovers completely, in α-quartz there is a residual amorphization even after annealing. A two-layer model is proposed which gives a reasonable simulation of the observed IR properties.