Creep of a crystalline metallic layer induced by high energy heavy ion irradiation

The atomic transport induced by ion electronic energy loss in amorphous systems is studied on metallic sandwiches irradiated at liquid nitrogen temperature with 500 MeV iodide ions delivered by the VICKSI accelerator of the Hahn-Meitner-Institut (Berlin), The sandwiches are composed of two amorphous Ni3B layers of 1 or 1.5 mu m thickness embedding a crystalline Au or W layer of thickness varying from 20 to 900 nm, Rutherford backscattering experiments using a 3.6 MeV He2+ beam delivered by the ARAMIS accelerator of the CSNSM (Orsay) were performed in order to determine the modifications of the geometry of the sandwiches after swift heavy ion irradiation, The results show a huge creep of the crystalline part of the sandwiches. The magnitude of this creep depends on the nature of the crystalline layer (Au or W) and increases steadily with the irradiating ion fluence with a strain-rate decreasing with increasing layer thickness. This creep phenomenon is due to the plastic deformation process occurring in the surrounding amorphous layers and is induced by ion electronic energy loss, A simple rheological model is developed to reproduce the observed effects.