A New Solid Solution Approach for the Study of Self-Irradiating Damage in non-Radioactive Materials

A new method to produce a model system for the study of radiation damage in non-radioactive materials is presented. The method is based on homogenously dissolving minute amounts of (228)Th ions in thin films in a controllable manner using a small volume chemical bath deposition technique. This approach is demonstrated for PbS films. The properties of the PbS ((228)Th) solid solution film activity were investigated by monitoring the accompanying radioactive processes. Electrical resistivity studies were performed and decay-event damage accumulation was measured, followed by isochronal annealing which presented two annealing stages and another two sub-stages. This is the first report on self-irradiating damage studies in IV-VI semiconductors and the resulting films present a novel method for the analysis of dilute defect systems in semiconductor thin films.