Patent ID: 8440578

Claim:
A method for amorphizing a portion of a substrate, comprising: disposing a substrate having a first portion and a second portion therein in a gas cluster ion beam (GCIB) processing system; treating at least said first portion of said substrate with a first GCIB using a first beam energy selected to yield an amorphous sub-layer from said first portion within said substrate of a desired thickness, said second portion being a crystalline sub-layer, and said treating with said first GCIB producing a first interfacial roughness of an amorphous-crystal interface between said amorphous sub-layer and said crystalline sub-layer of said substrate; and then treating at least said first portion of said substrate with a second GCIB using a second beam energy, less than said first beam energy, to reduce said first interfacial roughness of said amorphous-crystal interface to a second interfacial roughness; and then treating said first portion of said substrate with a third GCIB using a third beam energy, less than said second beam energy, to reduce a surface roughness of an exposed surface of said amorphous sub-layer, wherein the method further comprises: forming a patterned mask layer on said substrate prior to said treating said first portion of said substrate using said first GCIB in order to cause patterning of said substrate; and removing said patterned mask layer.