LAUSR

ABSTRACT Gallium phosphide can be considered as a prospective material for impurity band solar cell (IBSC), if sufficient amount of an appropriate impurity (Ti in our case) is introduced to the material by e.g. ion implantation without distorting the crystallographic order, necessary to maintain the semiconducting properties of the host. In our experiments, the crystallographic order (damaged by ion implantation) is restored by electron pulse annealing (EPA). When the EPA process using subthreshold electron pulse energy density is studied by RBS technique, a peculiar electron-pulse induced lattice reconstruction is observed, consisting in growth of the damaged region beyond the range observed after ion implantation. This phenomenon is confirmed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) results and interpreted in terms of melting nuclei formed around the implanted ions in a material with high sublimation pressure.