Photonics-Driven Characterization of Highly Energetic Heavy Ion-Induced Modifications in GaAs Single Crystals Using Au and I Ions

Gallium arsenide (GaAs) (100) samples were irradiated with 1.16 GeV Au ions and 30 MeV I ions at room temperature. The impact of ion fluences, ranging from 5 × 1010 to 2.5 × 1012 Au ions cm−2 and 7 × 1011 to 1 × 1014 I ions cm−2 at a 75° incident angle, on the surface morphology and structural properties of the irradiated GaAs samples was investigated. Advanced characterization techniques, such as Atomic Force Microscopy and micro-Raman spectroscopy, were employed for an in-depth analysis. The results indicated no formation of nanostructures on the irradiated surfaces. Raman analysis at room temperature showed softening of optical phonons due to phonon confinement at the surface, along with a downward shift in the LO and TO phonon modes for both I and Au-irradiated GaAs samples. These results are essential for understanding the photonic and optical characteristics of GaAs when subjected to heavy ion irradiation. They are analyzed in the context of ion-matter interactions in the MeV range, providing valuable insights into the optical responses and phonon behavior in altered semiconductor materials. Received: 14 September 2024 | Revised: 12 December 2024 | Accepted: 13 February 2025 Conflicts of Interest The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest to this work. Data Availability Statement Data are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. Author Contribution Statement Habib Abdurahman Arebu: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Formal analysis, Resources, Data curation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Visualization. Omar Abdulsahib Saleh: Writing – review & editing, Supervision.