Study of swift heavy ion tracks on crystalline quartz surfaces

Ion irradiation of SiO2 quartz at medium energy induces damage in the bulk as well as modification on the surface. To make a correlation between the bulk and the surface phenomena, AFM investigations on the SiO2 quartz surfaces, irradiated with Ni, Kr and Pb ions were performed. To avoid the overlap of the defects, the fluences were 5 x 10(9), 1 x 10(10) and 6 x 10(10) ions/cm(2). The specific energies were between 2 and 6 MeV/u. The ion-induced damage surface was studied using a Digital Nanoscope III working in Tapping Mode, at ambient conditions. We observed hillocks induced by the irradiation with the different ions. The radius of hillocks has been compared with the radius of the tracks induced in the bulk. At high energy loss for dE/dx larger than 7 keV/nm, there is one hillock per ion, contrary to the observations of Wilson et al. (C) 2003 Published by Elsevier B.V.