Characterization by Nuclear and Spectrophotometric Analysis of Near-Surface Modifications of Glass Implanted with Heavy Ions

A soda‐lime‐silica glass was irradiated by different heavy ion (N, Ne, Ar, and Kr) with energies chosen in order to obtain the same penetration depth. The near‐surface sodium depletion layer, characterized by nuclear analysis and infrared reflectance spectrophotometry (IRRS), is deeper than the implanted‐ion range and grows with increasing incident‐ion mass at the same dose and current density. By using reflectance spectrophotometry in the solar range, the formation of a near‐surface perturbed layer having a modified refractive index as compared to the bulk and a thickness comparable to the sodium depletion layer was confirmed.