Energy Deposition upon Swift Heavy Ion Impact in Silicon Nanostructures and Surfaces

Material changes made through the energy deposition upon the swift heavy ion impact can be strongly influenced by size effects in the case of nanomaterials. In particular, the amount of energy available for material modification can be significantly reduced through dissipation via electron emission. Here, this open problem is studied using the Geant4 code with the MicroElectronics package. The impact of silicon ions with various kinetic energies (in a range between 2.8 MeV and 280 MeV) is simulated in silicon nanomaterials (nanocubes, nanowires and thin films) and on the surface of silicon. The dimensions of all studied geometries were between 5 and 100 nm. The presented results indicate that the amount of dissipated energy can be significant and should be considered when modelling changes in nanomaterials induced by swift heavy ion impacts, because primary electrons can easily escape from nanomaterials.