APPLICATION OF ELECTROSTATIC ACCELERATORS - A NEW DIMENSION IN MATERIALS SCIENCE

Electrostatic accelerators which produce voltages up to a few MeV are well suited generators for purposes of materials science. The main domains of applications are materials modifications as well as materials analysis for all categories of materials, metals, semiconductors, insulators, ceramics and polymers. The direct correlation between acceleration voltage and energies of the particles and thus penetration depths into the material allows to modify materials due to the technical requirements, i.e. building three dimensional ICs. The analysis of materials requires higher energies than the implantation but in general lower currents. Presently a large fraction of measurements are profile measurements using the Rutherford backscattering scheme for profiling and controlling implantation layers as well as stoichiometric compositions of materials. In addition to the Coulomb scattering nuclear resonance scattering of α's on oxygen is used for profiling oxygen in near surface regions which is a method which penetrates also into the field of catalysis. Moreover, an increasing amount of time is devoted to the activation analysis to detect light impurities like carbon or oxygen. The industrial application of electrostatic accelerators is a rapidly increasing field. © 1990.