STM and Raman spectroscopic study of graphite irradiated by heavy ions

Highly oriented pyrolytic graphite was irradiated with swift heavy ions (Ne, Cr, Fe, Ni, Zn, Xe and U) of $uences between 10(11) and 10(14) ions/cm(2) in energy range MeV-GeV. The combination of scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and Raman spectroscopy studies shows that large numbers of tracks protrude from the surface. The disordered crystal lattice is leading to a Raman-active D mode. Quantitative analysis of the peak intensity indicates that the size of the crystallite domain is larger than the mean distance between in-plane tracks observed by STM. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.