Recoil implantation using gas-phase precursor molecules

Ion implantation underpins a vast range of devices and technologies that require precise control over the physical, chemical, electronic, magnetic and optical properties of materials. A variant termed "recoil implantation" - in which a precursor is deposited onto a substrate as a thin film and implanted via momentum transfer from incident energetic ions - has a number of compelling advantages, particularly when performed using an inert ion nano-beam [Fröch et al., Nat. Commun., 2020, 11, 5039]. However, a major drawback of this approach is that the implant species are limited to the constituents of solid thin films. Here we overcome this limitation by demonstrating recoil implantation using gas-phase precursors. Specifically, we fabricate nitrogen-vacancy (NV) color centers in diamond using an Ar+ ion beam and the nitrogen-containing precursor gases N2, NH3 and NF3. Our work expands the applicability of recoil implantation with the potential to be suitable to a larger portion of the periodic table, and to applications in which thin film deposition/removal is impractical.