The emission process of secondary ions from solids bombarded with large gas cluster ions

We investigated the effects of size and energy of large incident Ar cluster ions on the secondary ion emission of Si. The secondary ions were measured using a double deflection method and a time-of-flight (TOF) technique. The size of the incident Ar cluster ions was between a few hundreds and several tens of thousands of atoms, and the energy up to 60 keV. Under the incidence of keV energy atomic Ar ions, mainly atomic Si ions were detected, whereas Si cluster ions were rarely observed. On the other hand, under the incidence of large Ar cluster ions, the dominant secondary ions were  (2 ? n ? 11). It has become clear that the yield ratio of secondary Si cluster ions was determined by the velocity of the incident cluster ions, and this strong dependence of the yield ratio on incident velocity should be related to the mechanisms of secondary ion emission under large Ar cluster ion bombardment.     

Development of secondary ion mass spectroscopy using medium energy C60 ion impact

In this paper, we report time-of-flight (TOF) secondary ion mass spectroscopy using primary C₆₀ ions with an energy range from several tens of keV to several hundreds of keV. Application of the spectroscopy to the analysis of a poly(amino acid) film revealed that characteristic peaks, necessary for identification of the amino acid in proteins, show higher intensities for medium energy C₆₀ (120 keV and 540 keV ) impacts than those for low energy C₆₀ (30 keV ) impacts. This finding demonstrates that medium energy C₆₀ ion impacts are useful for highly sensitive characterization of amino acids.     

Evidence for the bulk nature of self-assembled monolayer surface of fluorinated alkyl thiol from hyperthermal energy ion-surface collisions

Kinetic energy distributions of fragment ions from hyperthermal energy collisions of ions with a self-assembled monolayer surface of fluorinated alkyl thiol on gold substrate and a LiF surface (vapor deposited on titanium substrate) have been measured as a function of scattering angle and fragment ion mass. These distributions for the thiol surface show two energetically and angularly distinct pathways for the dissociation of ions while those from LiF show only one peak. A plot of the velocities of the fragment ions as a Newton diagram for these two processes clearly demonstrates that one process is due to the collision of ions with a fraction of the molecular chain of the monolayer surface molecule with scattering over a broader angular range while the other process is due to collision of the projectile ions with the monolayer surface acting as a bulk surface with fragment ions scattering close to the surface parallel and resembles the Newton diagram from the LiF surface.     

Molecular dynamics simulations to explore the effect of chemical bonding in the keV bombardment of Si with C60, Ne60 and Ne60 projectiles

Depth profiling experiments using secondary ion spectrometry (SIMS) have shown effects that are characteristic to the pairing of the projectile with a Si target. Previous molecular dynamics simulations demonstrate that this unusual behavior is due to the fact that strong covalent bonds are formed between the C atoms in the projectile and the Si atoms in the target, which result in the implantation of carbon into the solid. The focus of this paper is to understand how the formation of chemical bonds affects the net sputtered yield. The results of molecular dynamics simulations of the keV bombardment of Si with C₆₀, Ne₆₀ and ¹²Ne₆₀ at normal incidence are compared over a range of incident kinetic energies from 5 to 20 keV. The net yields with Ne₆₀ and ¹²Ne₆₀ are significantly greater than with C₆₀ at all incident kinetic energies, with ¹²Ne₆₀ having the largest values. Application of the mesoscale energy deposition footprint (MEDF) model shows that the initial deposition of energy into the substrate is similar with all three projectiles. Snapshots of the initial pathway of the projectile atoms through the substrate show a similar lateral and vertical distribution that is centered in the region of the energy footprint. Therefore, the reason for the reduced yield with C₆₀ is that the C atoms form bonds with the Si atoms, which causes them to remain in the substrate instead of being sputtered.     

The investigation of energy loss and damage in polycarbonate induced by MeV carbon clusters

Carbon cluster ions (n = 1-5) and Cl⁺, Ti⁺, Ni⁺ ions were used to bombard polycarbonate (PC) films. By comparing the electronic energy loss and the number of chromophores at a fixed wavelength, we obtained the electronic energy loss S_e of carbon cluster ions in PC.     

Electron emission from carbon induced by the ions C, O, CO and

The secondary electron yield from carbon induced by the ions C⁺, O⁺, CO⁺ and has been measured as a function of ion energy in the range of 2 to 20 keV. It has been observed that electron yield from carbon increases with projectile energy. By comparing electron yields induced by equally fast atomic and molecular projectiles, a molecular effect as a yield reduction has been observed. The measured molecular effect was stronger than the predictions of sweeping-out-electron model.     

Vicinage Effects for a Nitrogen Molecular Cluster in Plasmas

The vicinage effects are studied for a fast nitrogen diatomic molecular cluster in a high-density plasma target.A variety of plasma parameters are discussed with regard to stopping power ratio,molecular axis deflection and Coulomb explosion.Emphasis is placed on the vicinage effects on Coulomb explosion and stopping power for a nitrogen cluster in plasmas.The results indicate that vicinage effects influence the correlation between ions in the cluster,and the Coulomb explosion will proceed faster with higher projectile speed,lower plasma density and higher plasma temperature.Comparing hydrogen and nitrogen molecular ions for Coulomb explosion and deflection angle under the same set of parameters,one can find that the nitrogen ion has faster Coulomb explosion and stronger deflection of molecular axis due to the contribution of charge.In the initial stage of the Coulomb explosion the stopping power ratio has a higher value due to enhanced vicinage effects while in the later stage the stopping power ratio approaches one,indicating that the vicinage effects disappear and the ions in the cluster simply behave as independent atomic ions in the plasma.     

Stability and delayed fragmentation of highly charged C60 trapped in a conic-electrode electrostatic ion resonator (ConeTrap)

We employed a conic-electrode electrostatic ion resonator (ConeTrap) to store the recoil ions resulting from collision between 56 keV Ar⁸⁺ ions and C₆₀ in order to study their stability over a long time range (several milliseconds). The originality of our method, based on the trapping of a single ion to preserve the detection in coincidence of all the products of the collision, is presented in detail. Our results show that C₆₀ ions produced in such collisions are stable in the considered observation time. By employing the ConeTrap as a secondary mass spectrometer in order to let the ions oscillate only for a single period, we have been able to observe delayed evaporation of cold ions 20 μs after the collision. We interpret quantitatively the relative yields of daughter ions with a cascade model in which the transition rates are estimated via the commonly used Arrhenius law, taking into account the contribution of the radiative decay.     

Double resonant neutralization in hyperthermal energy alkali ion scattering at clean metal surfaces

Resonant neutralization of hyperthermal Na⁺ ions impinging on clean surfaces is studied, focussing on long lived electronic interactions involving the projectile and a target atom. Specific trajectories are considered where the incident particle undergoes multiple collisions within the first surface layers, interacting simultaneously with several target atoms, which leads to single emission of a surface atom that can resonantly exchange charge with both the solid and the projectile. The system is described via a semi-empirical, one-electron potential that includes the effect of a plane metal surface, with projected band gap, the projectile, whose charge state will be eventually investigated, and the substrate atom. On this basis, a model Hamiltonian of the Anderson-Newns type is constructed and the calculated neutralization probability is compared with the angle resolved neutral fraction measured by Keller et al. [C.A. Keller, C.A. DiRubio, G.A. Kimmel, B.H. Cooper, Phys. Rev. Lett. 75 (1995) 1654].     

Fast ion collisions with C60 in vapour phase and collective excitation: Comparison with other gaseous targets

The single and double ionization of a free C₆₀ molecule in collisions with fast heavy (F and Si) ions is investigated using a recoil ion time-of-flight mass spectrometer. The projectile charge state (q_p) dependence has also been investigated. A linear q_p-dependence has been explained in terms of a plasmon excitation model. In addition, continuum electron spectroscopy has been used to detect the electron emission from fullerenes. The measured electron angular distribution for the fullerene target is compared with that for a gaseous target at a fixed electron energy. The ratio of forward-to-backward cross section for C₆₀ is quite different from that for Ne.     

Middle-frequency magnetron sputtering for GaN growth

A middle-frequency magnetron sputtering system was designed and constructed for GaN growth, in which a pair of back cooled pool-shaped twin magnetrons were used for Ga metal targets. GaN films were prepared using this system under various gas pressure (0.5-3.0 Pa) in a mixture of N₂ and Ar with N₂/Ar ratio of 6:1. X-ray diffraction showed that the GaN films had a strong (0 0 0 2) orientation, and the film deposited at 1.5 Pa had two more weak peaks attributed to and . The full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the (0 0 0 2) peak for the GaN film deposited at 1.5 Pa and 0.5 Pa is ∼721 and ∼986 arcsec, respectively. The deposition rate was in the range of 43.5-87.8 nm/min and was mainly influenced by the deposition pressure. The films deposited at higher pressures are columnar in structure. A root-mean-square roughness of 4.4 nm was obtained from the atomic force microscopy (AFM) surface morphology of the film deposited at 0.5 Pa.     

Damage analysis of benzene induced by keV fullerene bombardment

Molecular dynamics computer simulations have been used to investigate the damage of a benzene crystal induced by 5 keV C₂₀, C₆₀, C₁₂₀ and C₁₈₀ fullerene bombardment. The sputtering yield, the mass distributions, and the depth distributions of ejected organic molecules are analyzed as a function of the size of the projectile. The results indicate that all impinging clusters lead to the creation of almost hemispherical craters, and the process of crater formation only slightly depends on the size of the fullerene projectile. The total sputtering yield as well as the efficiency of molecular fragmentation are the largest for 5 keV C₂₀, and decrease with the size of the projectile. Most of the molecules damaged by the projectile impact are ejected into the vacuum during cluster irradiation. Similar behavior does not occur during atomic bombardment where a large portion of fragmented benzene molecules remain inside the crystal after projectile impact. This “cleaning up” effect may explain why secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) analysis of some organic samples with cluster projectiles can produce significantly less accumulated damage compared to analysis performed with atomic ion beams.     

Anti-hydrogen - Meta-stable helium elastic scattering at thermal energies

This article analyses the results for ground state anti-hydrogen scattering off meta-stable helium (He(2^1/3S)) targets at thermal energies using atomic orbital expansion technique. The variation of phase shifts indicates that the effective leptonic potential for each system has neither any barrier nor any hump. The zero energy cross sections for both the targets are much greater than the ground state target: and . The maxima of the p-wave cross sections occur in the vicinity of the minima of s-wave result.     

Comparison of secondary ion emission yields for poly-tyrosine between cluster and heavy ion impacts

Emission yields of secondary ions necessary for the identification of poly-tyrosine were compared for incident ion impacts of energetic cluster ions (0.8 MeV , 2.4 MeV , and 4.0 MeV ) and swift heavy monoatomic molybdenum ions (4.0 MeV Mo⁺ and 14 MeV Mo⁴⁺) with similar mass to that of the cluster by time-of-flight secondary ion mass analysis combined with secondary ion electric current measurements. The comparison revealed that (1) secondary ion emission yields per impact increase with increasing incident energy within the energy range examined, (2) the 4.0 MeV impact provides higher emission yields than the impact of the monoatomic Mo ion with the same incident energy (4.0 MeV Mo⁺), and (3) the 2.4 MeV impact exhibits comparable emission yields to that for the Mo ion impact with higher incident energy (14 MeV Mo⁴⁺). Energetic cluster ion impacts effectively produce the characteristic secondary ions for poly-tyrosine, which is advantageous for highly sensitive amino acid detection in proteins using time-of-flight secondary ion mass analysis.     

Atom probe tomography of swift ion irradiated multilayers

Nanometer scale layered systems are well suited to investigate atomic transport processes induced by high-energy electronic excitations in materials, through the characterization of the interface transformation. In this study, we used the atom probe technique to determine the distribution of the different elements in a (amorphous- multilayer before and after irradiation with Pb ions in the electronic stopping power regime. Atom probe tomography is based on reconstruction of a small volume of a sharp tip evaporated by field effect. It has unique capabilities to characterize internal interfaces and layer chemistry with sub-nanometer scale resolution in three dimensions. Depth composition profiles and 3D element mapping have been determined, evidencing for asymmetric interfaces in the as-deposited sample, and very efficient Fe-Co intermixing after irradiation at the fluence 7×10¹² ion cm^-2. Estimation of effective atomic diffusion coefficients after irradiation suggests that mixing results from interdiffusion in a molten track across the interface in agreement with the thermal spike model.     

Tracks of 30-MeV C60 clusters in yttrium iron garnet studied by scanning force microscopy

Yttrium iron garnet (Y₃Fe₅O₁₂ or YIG), an amorphizable ferrimagnetic insulator, is probably the best studied material with respect to track formation and damage morphology. This paper presents first scanning force microscopy (SFM) of surface damage induced by energetic C₆₀ clusters. YIG single crystals were irradiated at normal incidence with 30-MeV C₆₀ cluster ions (kinetic energy ∼0.04 MeV/u) provided by the tandem accelerator of the Institute of Nuclear Physics in Orsay (IPNO). The SFM topographic images show nano-protrusions on the YIG surface; where each hillock is generated by one C₆₀ cluster. The role of stopping power and deposited energy density is discussed in terms of dimensional analysis of the nanostructures. Hillocks created by C₆₀ clusters are compared with those produced by monatomic ions.