This MATLAB code, named Mat-TRIM, is the seed of the IM3D project. Mat-TRIM is developed by Yang Yang as a graduate course term-project at MIT in Spring 2013. The code basically follows methods reported in the first paper of TRIM [Biersack JP, Haggmark LG (1980) Nucl. Instruments Methods 174:257–269], but enables the consideration of a plane ion source and a cylinder-shaped target structure. Although this program is very simple, it captures some key physics in ion radiation with good accuracy. Using it, we have demonstrated the need of full-3D simulation for ion radaition in nanstructured materials.
Through the term-project, Prof. Ju Li saw the value full-3D Monte Carlo simulations for ion radiation. He then organized a team, including Prof. Michael Short, Dr. Yonggang Li (visiting scholar in Ju's group at that time, now at CAS of Hefei, China) and me, to develop a MPI-Parrallized, full-3D code for ion radiation. A more advanced code, IM3D, is developed by our team later. It is written in C and pubished in 2015: ["IM3D: A parallel Monte Carlo code for efficient simulations of primary radiation displacements and damage in 3D geometry", Yong Gang Li, Yang Yang, Michael P. Short, Ze Jun Ding, Zhi Zeng and Ju Li, Scientific Reports 5 (2015) 18130].
For information related to IM3D, please refer to: http://li.mit.edu/im3d/
In 2018, we published another paper to fully quantify the necessity of full-3D simulation for nanoscale ion iradiation in some classic applications and provide guildines of using full-3D simulation for ion radiation at the nanoscale: ["Nano-beam and nano-target effects in ion radiation", Yang Yang, Yong Gang Li, Michael P. Short, Chung-Soo Kim, Karl K. Berggren and Ju Li, Nanoscale 10 (2018) 1598-1606]