Effects of ArF excimer irradiation on single energy and multi energy Ge ion implanted silica

Some of the effects of ArF excimer irradiation on the optical bands produced by single energy (4 MeV) and multi energy (highest energy 4 MeV) Ge implantations in silica (Type III) have been determined. Ge ions were implanted at 4 MeV with nominal doses of 1.25, 2.5 and 5.0×10¹⁵ ions/cm². A second series of samples was made using implant energies ranging from 4 to 0.7 MeV. The doses at each energy were varied to maintain an approximate constant implant species concentration with the total number of ions implanted being 10×10¹⁵ and 5×10¹⁵ cm^-2 for concentrations of 0.042 and 0.021 at.%, respectively. The optical absorption was measured from 2.8 to 6.5 eV. The absorption of samples was then measured after 6.4 eV ArF excimer radiation with a fluence of 44 mJ/cm² per pulse for pulse totals of 3, 11 and 31. We fit the observed spectra for the as-implanted samples and the samples after each ArF exposure to the minimum number of bands attributed to intrinsic states in SiO₂ required to fit the data within ±2%. The magnitude and response of these absorption bands to the ArF irradiation was a function of dose and implant conditions.