High-temperature sputtering of bimetallic clusters by low-energy argon clusters

Molecular dynamic simulation of sputtering of bimetallic bipartite clusters bombarded by Ar1 and Ar13 particles is performed. The bombarded targets are 390-atom clusters consisting of two parts with equal number of atoms of the monocomponent fractions, Cu–Au and Ni–Al. The energy distributions of atoms in clusters and distributions of sputtered atoms with respect to the time of emission from clusters are obtained; these distributions testify to the increasing contribution of thermal evaporation of atoms into the sputtering yield of the metallic cluster with increasing size and energy of bombarding particles.