Defects in room temperature solid inert gases

We report on the use of high resolution electron microscopy and optical processing techniques to study defects in solid inert gas precipitates (bubbles) formed by ion implantation into aluminium. Faceted precipitates, of the order of 5 run in length and epitaxial with the aluminium, in some cases exhibit a high degree of crystalline perfection but in others departure from the regular atomic arrangement is evident in the lattice images. Optical processing techniques have been applied to enhance the lattice images and in some cases to colour encode the aluminium and inert gas spacings present in the micrograph, with the aim of indentifying specific defect structures in the inert gas solid. We demonstrate that the solid “bubble”, formed in a metal by ion implantation, provides a means of studying defects in a simple insulator, the rare gas solid.