Simulation of the Secondary Effect of Low Energy Ions Implanting in Seeds

The breeding method by low-energy ion implantation has been proved to be a valuable breeding method by a large number of practical attempts, but the mechanism of the method has always been in a large dispute. The most difficult thing to be understood is how the low energy heavy ion with such a short range (normally shorter than 1 μm) can penetrate into the inner part of seeds to trigger the biological effects. In this paper, simulations with quantitative analysis were performed for the low energy ion implantating into biological samples and the effects caused by the secondary particles using SRIM, CASINO and Geant4 simulation programs. The results showed that the ranges of low energy heavy ions are normally less than 1 μm. The ranges can become longer if dry seeds and light ions are used with a higher energy. The ranges of recoil protons are only a little longer than that of the primary ions. Among the secondary particles produced in the ion implanting process, only the X-ray can obviously increase the penetration depth in seeds. There always will be a small amount of X-rays which can penetrate into the deeper place in the seed if the ion dose is high enough.