Wurtzite films were bombarded with keV ions and studied using high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. The results showed that bombardment, using a wide range of conditions (ion mass, dose, temperature), led to the formation of planar defects which were parallel to the basal plane of the wurtzite structure. For all of the conditions studied, all of the planar defects which were observed in the ~20nm-thick near-surface layers were interstitial in nature and had Burgers vectors of ½[00▪1] or 1/6<2¯2▪3>. The nature of the irradiation-induced defects appeared to be independent of the bombardment conditions, but the latter affected the average defect size and density. Thus, larger planar defects were observed for higher bombardment temperatures.

Nature of Planar Defects in Ion-Implanted GaN. Y.G.Wang, J.Zou, S.O.Kucheyev, J.S.Williams, C.Jagadish, G.Li: Electrochemical and Solid-State Letters, 2003, 6[3], G34-6