Comparison of SIMS and RBS for depth profiling of silica glasses implanted with metal ions

Ion implantation of metal ions, followed by annealing, can be used for the formation of buried layers of metal nanoparticles in glasses. Thus, photonic structures with nonlinear optical properties can be formed. In this study, three samples of silica glasses were implanted with Cu⁺, Ag⁺, or Au⁺ ions under the same conditions (energy 330 keV and fluence 1 × 10¹⁶ ions/cm²), and compared to three identical silica glass samples that were subsequently coimplanted with oxygen at the same depth. All the implanted glasses were annealed at 600 °C for 1 h, which leads to the formation of metal nanoparticles. The depth profiles of Cu, Ag, and Au were measured by Rutherford backscattering and by secondary ion mass spectrometry and the results are compared and discussed.