Damage formation and annealing at low temperatures in ion implanted ZnO

N, Ar, and Er ions were implanted into ZnO at 15 K within a large fluence range. The Rutherford backscattering technique in the channeling mode was used to study in situ the damage built-up in the Zn sublattice at 15 K. Several stages in the damage formation were observed. From the linear increase of the damage for low implantation fluences, an upper limit of the Zn displacement energy of 65 eV could be estimated for [0001] oriented ZnO. Annealing measurements below room temperature show a significant recovery of the lattice starting at temperatures between 80 and 130 K for a sample implanted with low Er fluence. Samples with higher damage levels do not reveal any damage recovery up to room temperature, pointing to the formation of stable defect complexes.