LUMINESCENCE DURING ION-IMPLANTATION OF SILICA

During ion implantation of amorphous silica radiation damage is caused both by the nuclear collision loss term and to a lesser extent by the ionization term. The results clearly demonstrate that the relative contribution of the two terms influences the dependence of the luminescence intensity with ion energy and also the temperature variations. In the ion energy dependence measurements, the form of the curve is explained by including ionization annealing of the metastable defects. Spectral measurements show features which can be interpreted as further evidence that the damage mechanism in silica involves exciton transitions.