Figure 1: Particle irradiation and created defects.
From: Disorder-induced topological change of the superconducting gap structure in iron pnictides
(a) Contour plot of maximum energy transferred to Fe atoms (recoil energy) for irradiated particles with the rest mass m and incident energy E. Typical threshold energy Ed for the displacement of Fe atoms from the lattice is marked by thick orange line. Typical energies for electron (red square), neutron (green diamond), proton (purple circle), α particle (black triangle) and heavy-ion Pb (blue diamond) irradiation are indicated. Owing to its small mass, the recoil energy of the electron irradiation used in this study is orders of magnitude smaller than those of other particle cases. (b–d) Schematic illustrations for different types of defects created by particle irradiation. Columnar defects can be created by heavy-ion irradiation (b). Particle irradiation with relatively large recoil energies tends to have cascades of point defects due to successive collision of atoms (c). Electron irradiation with a small recoil energy is the most reliable way to obtain uniform point defects (d).
