Distinct defect appearance in Gd implanted polar and nonpolar ZnO surfaces in connection to ion channeling effect

(0001) c-plane, (11-20) a-plane, and m-plane (10-10) ZnO bulk crystals were implanted with 400-keV Gd⁺ ions using fluences of 5 × 10¹⁴, 1 × 10¹⁵, 2.5 × 10¹⁵, and 5 × 10¹⁵ cm⁻². Structural changes during the implantation and subsequent annealing were characterized by Rutherford backscattering spectrometry in channeling mode (RBS-C); the angular dependence of the backscattered ions (angular scans) in c-, a-, and m-plane ZnO was realized to get insight into structural modification and dopant position in various crystallographic orientations. X-ray diffraction (XRD) with mapping in reciprocal space was also used for introduced defect identification. Defect-accumulation depth profiles exhibited differences for c-, a-, and m-plane ZnO, with the a-plane showing significantly lower accumulated disorder in the deeper layer in Zn-sublattice, accompanied by the preservation of ion channeling phenomena in a-plane ZnO. Enlargement of the main lattice parameter was evidenced, after the implantation, in all orientations. The highest was evidenced in a-plane ZnO. The local compressive deformation was seen with XRD analysis in polar (c-plane) ZnO, and the tensile deformation was observed in nonpolar ZnO (a-plane and m-plane orientations) being in agreement with RBS-C results. Raman spectroscopy showed distinct structural modification in various ZnO orientations simultaneously with identification of the disordered structure in O-sublattice. Nonpolar ZnO showed a significant increase in disorder in O-sublattice exhibited by E₂(high) disappearance and enhancement of A₁(LO) and E₁(LO) phonons connected partially to oxygen vibrational modes. The lowering of the E₂(low) phonon mode and shift to the lower wavenumbers was observed in c-plane ZnO connected to Zn-sublattice disordering. Such observations are in agreement with He ion channeling, showing channeling effect preservation with only slight Gd dopant position modification in a-plane ZnO and the more progressive diminishing of channels with subsequent Gd movement to random position with the growing ion fluence and after the annealing in c-plane and m-plane ZnO.