Measuring sputter yields of ceramic materials

*† ‡ § This paper describes the sputter yield measurements on isolating materials. To avoid charging of the non-conducting target a neutralizer is employed. The target current is determined from reference measurements of a material with known sputter yield. Strong effects of the neutralizing electrons on the ion beam properties at the target were found. Therefore, a comprehensive characterization of the ion properties at the target has been performed. The sputter yield of quartz, alumina (Al2O3) and boron nitride (BN) under normal xenon ion incidence has been measured in the energy range 100 to 800 eV.