Electron Beam Annealing (EBA) is an interesting tool to fabricate nanostructures such as nanowhiskers [1], or nanopillars [2] at the surface of silicon-based materials. The fabrication of these nanostructures is often driven by electron beam enhanced desorption of the native silicon oxide [2, 3, 4]. Recently we successfully created metallic nanoclusters on the surface of a thin silica layer using ion implantation. Iron atoms up to 25nm deep were implanted into a 400 nm thick SiO₂ layer with small concentrations followed by EBA for duriation of seconds to hours at 1000°C. In this presentation we will demonstrate the roles of EBA during the fabrication process with TEM results. Rutherford Backscattering Spectrometry (RBS), and spectrometric ellipsometry were used to understand the displacement of the nanoclusters.  Ellipsometry and RBS spectra were fitted with appropriate models in order to retrieve the optical characteristics, composition and structure of the samples. Results showed that the thickness of the layer depends on EBA parameters. Detailed results and discussion regarding this particular aspect will be presented.

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