Molecular dynamics study of defect formation in GaN cascades

Simulations of irradiation effects in compound semiconductors require interatomic potentials which describe not only the compound phases, but also the pure constituents and defects. We discuss a systematic approach based on the analytic bond-order scheme for constructing such potentials and give an example for GaN. Finally, this potential is employed for simulations of defect formation in GaN by ion irradiation for recoils in the 200 eV to 10 keV energy range. Results on the total damage production are presented and compared with other semiconductors and experiments. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.