Channeling study of amorphous phase formation in Nisub3B by ion implantation

The amorphous phase formation in ${\mathrm{Ni}}_3$B single crystals bombarded at 90 K with ${}_{}{}^{83}{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{Kr}_{}^{+}{}_{}{}^{}$, ${}_{}{}^{58}{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{Ni}_{}^{+}{}_{}{}^{}$, ${}_{}{}^{11}{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{B}_{}^{+}{}_{}{}^{}$, and ${}_{}{}^1{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{H}_{}^{+}{}_{}{}^{}$ ions is studied via in situ Rutherford backscattering and channeling experiments. It is found that no threshold value of the density of deposited energy per incident ion exists for amorphization and that, contrary to what was expected from previous experiments on ion-bombarded metallic compounds, the amorphization kinetics does not depend on the mass of the incident ions but is an almost linear function of the number of atoms displaced in the atomic collision cascades.