Radiation damage in a (initially crystalline) silicon wafer was generated by microbeam ion implantation with 600 keV Si+ ions (fluence 5 × 1014 ions/cm2). To produce micro-areas with different degrees of damage, 14 implantations at different temperatures (between 23 and 225 °C) were done. The structural state of irradiated areas was characterized using Raman spectroscopy and electron back-scatter diffraction. All irradiated areas showed strong structural damage in surficial regions (estimated depth <1 μm), and at implant substrate temperatures of below 130 °C, the treatment caused complete amorphization. Back-scattered electron (BSE) image intensities correlate with the degree of irradiation damage; all irradiated areas were higher in BSE than the surrounding host. Because there were no variations in the chemical composition and, with that, no &Zmacr; contrast in our sample, this observation again supports the hypothesis that structural radiation damage may strongly affect BSE images of solids.

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