Effect of charge-state fluctuations of ions moving in solids on high-energy ion implantation

High-energy implantation involves ion velocities such that ions are partially stripped of their electronic charge when moving inside the solid target. Most ion range distribution calculations so far have been using mean charge states as a function of the ion velocity, in order to determine the ion electronic stopping. However, it is known that fluctuations in the ion charge state lead to an increased energy-loss straggling of the ion beam. In this work the effect of charge-state fluctuations on ion range distribution calculations is studied. We show that the ion equilibrium charge-state distributions can be used to account for charge-state fluctuations inside a Monte-Carlo formalism, and that this effect can be important in order to understand implanted ion range distributions in the MeV energy range.