Penetration of slow gold clusters through silicon

Abstract The penetration of gold clusters with energies of 0.1 and 1 keV atom through thin silicon targets has been investigated by molecular dynamics simulation. The stopping power per gold atom is noticeably smaller than for bombardment with gold atoms. For 0.1 keV atom , we observed a decrease by a factor of two. The energy spectrum of penetrating gold atoms is broader for cluster bombardment and the skewness smaller, compared with the case of atomic bombardment. Similar effects are observed in angular scattering distributions. The decrease in mean energy loss is demonstrated to be caused by a clearing-the-way effect. The increased energy loss straggling is shown to be due to collisions between projectile atoms. The results of this work are asserted to be characteristic for the case of clusters made up by atoms that are heavier than the target atoms.