Energy distributions of the particles sputtered by gas cluster ions. Experiment and computer simulation

Abstract We present experimental studies and computer simulations of the energy distributions of the particles sputtered from copper and molybdenum with gas cluster ions. Both experimental and simulated distributions were found to be narrower than ones known for atomic ion sputtering. It was shown that the distributions of sputtered atoms obtained by molecular dynamics simulations can be well described in frames of the thermal spike theory. For a given cluster energy, its size and the target material properties determine the parameters of the distributions. Including into consideration sequential cluster impacts on the target surface resulted in changes both in energy and angular distributions of sputtered matter and as well in total sputtering yield. Experimentally measured distributions well matched the ones simulated in “sequential” mode.