Research On The Optical Properties Of Ion Implanted Sapphire

Sapphire is implanted with ion species, on the one hand, these implanted ions can form nano-meter particles in the sapphire;on the other hand, different kinds of color centers can be yielded in the sapphire by ion implantation due to irradiation effect. The changes of the properties of the sapphire, especially, of the optical properties,are influnced by the implanted impurity and the color centers. The element of transition metal, Nb⁺ was first used to implante into sapphire in our work. The optical properties of the implanted sapphire before and after annealing in reducing atmosphere were systematically studied. And surface morphologies of the samples were also observed with SEM. The following conclusions can be drawn from this study:(1) the XPS results indicate that the implanted Nb are in different charge states like Nb⁰,Nb⁺¹,Nb⁺² Nb⁺⁴,Nb⁺⁵ after annealing in reducing atmosphere, and their number peaks locate at different depth.(2) According to the optical absorption spectra, the main absorption bands are located at the UV-Vis area for all the samples implanted with Nb ions. All the absorption curves were evaluated by Gaussian fitting showing that there were F center, F⁺ center, F₂ center, F₂⁺ center and F₂⁺² center in the Nb⁺ implanted sapphire, which were confirmed by luminescence spectra. the annealing parameter affect the elimination of color centers...