Implantation of xenon in amorphous carbon and silicon for brachytherapy application

We report a procedure to implant high dose of xenon atoms (Xe) in amorphous carbon, a-C, and amorphous silicon, a-Si, for application in brachytherapy seeds. An ion beam assisted deposition (IBAD) system was used for the deposition of the films, where one ion gun was used for sputtering a carbon (or silicon) target, while the other ion gun was used to simultaneously bombard the growing film with a beam of xenon ion Xe+ in the 0–300 eV range. Xe atoms were implanted into the film with concentration up to 5.5 at.%, obtained with Xe bombardment energy in the 50–150 eV range. X-ray absorption spectroscopy was used to investigate the local arrangement of the implanted Xe atoms through the Xe LIII absorption edge (4.75 keV). It was observed that Xe atoms tend to agglomerate in nanoclusters in a-C and are dispersed in a-Si.