DOI: 10.1140/epja/i2001-10267-y
Applications of radioactive ion beams to solid-state physics
M. Deicher1 and the ISOLDE Collaboration21 Fachbereich Physik, Universität Konstanz, D-78457 Konstanz, Germany
2 CERN/PPE, CH-1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland
manfred.deicher@uni-konstanz.de
(Received: 21 March 2002 / Published online: 31 October 2002)
Abstract
Radioactive atoms have been used in solid-state physics and in
material science for many decades.
Besides their classical application as tracer for diffusion studies, nuclear
techniques such as Mößbauer
spectroscopy, perturbed angular correlation,
-NMR, and emission
channeling have used nuclear properties (via
hyperfine interactions or emitted
- or
-particles) to gain
microscopical information on the
structural and dynamical properties of solids. During the last decade, the
availability of many different
radioactive isotopes as a clean ion beam at ISOL facilities like ISOLDE/CERN
has triggered a new era involving
methods sensitive for the optical and electronic properties of solids,
especially in the field of semiconductor
physics. Extremely sensitive spectroscopic techniques like deep-level
transient spectroscopy (DLTS),
photoluminescence (PL), and Hall effect gain a new quality by using
radioactive isotopes: Due to their decay the
chemical origin of an observed electronic and optical behavior of a specific
defect or dopant can be unambiguously
identified. This review will briefly introduce the experimental techniques
used and browse through the ongoing
experiments in solid-state physics using radioactive ion beams demonstrating
the wide variety of problems under
study involving bulk properties, surfaces and interfaces in many different
systems like semiconductors,
superconductors, magnetic systems, metals and ceramics.
61.72.-y - Defects and impurities in crystals; microstructure.
71.55.-i - Impurity and defect levels.
76.80.+y - Mössbauer effect; other
-ray spectroscopy.
© Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag 2002
