Angular distributions of Ni and Ti atoms sputtered from a NiTi alloy under He and Ar ion bombardment

The angular distributions of sputtered components were measured for NiTi polycrystalline alloy under 9 keV Ar⁺ and He⁺ ions bombardments with various fluences in ultrahigh vacuum. Combination of Rutherford Backscattering Spectrometry (RBS) and Auger Electron Spectrometry (AES) techniques allowed us to observe enhanced concentration of Ni over a layer with thickness comparable to a primary He⁺ ions penetration depth due to selective sputtering of Ti atoms and radiation-induced diffusion processes. A preferential emission of Ni atoms towards the surface normal was observed during bombardment by both He⁺ and Ar⁺ ions. More forward-peaked “over-cosine” angular distributions of sputtered Ni in comparison with those for Ti atoms have been measured. Nonstoichiometric sputtering of NiTi alloy dependent on emission angle was observed for bombardment fluence of He⁺ well below that needed for the steady-state altered layer formation. To explain the peculiarities of NiTi sputtering, an interpretation is discussed in terms of sputtering due to backscattered He⁺ ions.     

Sputtering of condensed noble gases by keV heavy ions

Bombardment of condensed Kr and Xe by 2–8 keV noble gas ions results in very high sputtering yields. A considerable fraction (10–30%) of the sputtered particles consists of Van der Waals clusters, with Kr₂, Kr₃, Xe₂, XeKr, XeKr₂ and ArKr having been observed. The kinetic energy distributions of the sputtered monomer-species are in agreement with a collision cascade mechanism. However, at the low energy side an excess yield is observed. This is explained by a model which takes into account the large sputtering yields and the damage of the surface during the sputtering process. The energy distributions of the dimers and trimers are satisfactorily explained by a statistical model. It is concluded that the dimer and trimer species are sputtered during an early stage of the cascade.     

Assessment of approximations for efficient topography simulation of ion beam processes: 10 keV Ar on Si

The main assumption of existing efficient topography simulations is that sputtering is a local process that depends only on the angle of incidence and not on the detailed shape of the surface. If redeposition is considered, sputtered atoms are redeposited and cause no further sputtering when they hit another part of the surface. Furthermore the angular distribution of sputtered atoms follows a cosine law. If ion reflection is considered, ions do not lose energy during backscattering. Using binary collision simulations (IMSIL) and comparing them with results obtained by a topography simulator (IonShaper^®) we show that all these assumptions need refinement for the simulation of nanostructures except the neglect of sputtering by sputtered atoms. In addition we show that a nonlocal model is essential for ion beam induced deposition of narrow structures.     

Chemical effects of thermonuclear plasma interactions with insulator and metal surfaces

The interactions of chemically reactive ions with insulator and metal surfaces result in specific chemical effects which must be considered in sputtering, blistering, trapping and re-emission processes involving these projectiles. Chemical sputtering and chemical trapping of ion beam flux are examples of chemical interaction effects which are discussed. Bombardment of a niobium surface by oxygen and nitrogen ions results in the formation of sputtered niobium oxide and nitride molecules. The molecular species are identified and characterized by means of their vibrational spectra using isotopic substitution and matrix isolation techniques. Results using matrix isolation spectroscopy for both physical and chemical sputtering studies on materials of CTR interest are presented. Chemical trapping is evaluated as a method of chemically pumping the major fraction of ion beam flux in the divertor of next generation tokamaks.     

Effect of Auger neutralization on yields of He ions backscattered and alkali ions sputtered from the surface of alkali halides by keV He ion impact

The yields of ions and neutrals backscattered and alkali ions sputtered from LiF crystals by keV He⁺ ion impact have been measured by means of the coaxial impact collision ion scattering spectroscopy in time of flight analysis mode using the charging-up effect. It is found that as the charging-up potential increases due to continuous irradiation of the pulsed ion beam, the time of flight of the He⁺ ions backscattered shifts toward the shorter time, while that of the neutrals backscattered shifts toward the longer, and that of Li ions sputtered also shifts much more clearly toward the shorter. The charging-up potential has been estimated as a function of irradiation time of the pulsed ion beam from the time of flight data and the ion to neutral ratio in the backscattering yields is estimated to be about 0.15. The mechanisms for ionization on He and sputtering of alkali ions are discussed in terms of charging-up and trion (bihole and electron) produced by Auger neutralization of keV He⁺ ions at the target surface.     

The density effects in sputtering of amorphous materials

The effects of the target atomic density on sputtering of amorphous targets under 1 keV Ar ion bombardment have been investigated using binary-collision simulation. Attention was given to the sputtering yield, and the angular and energy distributions of sputtered atoms. A large set of targets, from ³Li to ⁹²U was considered and three interatomic potentials were applied. It has been shown that both the sputtering yield and the angular and energy distributions of sputtered atoms are undoubtedly dependent on the target atomic density. Results are compared with the data from the literature.     

Emission of large molecules from methane by ion bombardment

Condensed layers ot methane at 20 K have been bombarded by 6–8 keV Ar⁺, He⁺ and H₂⁺ ions. Mass spectra and Kinetic energy distributions of neutral species sputtered from these layers have been measured. We have found sputtered species with masses up to 72 amu and thus with at least 5 carbon atoms. In addition to this an involatile residue was formed. Analysis by pyrolysis mass spectrometry showed this residue to contain species with masses up to at least 170 amu which therefore contain at least 12 carbon atoms. The kinetic energy distributions of sputtered methane molecules lie between those of a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution and a collision cascade. Higher values are reached for Ar⁺ than for the light ions. From these observations we conclude: for both light and heavy ions radicals are formed, which combine to new molecules. These exothermic reactions produce heat which causes desorption. The high energy tail for bombardment with argon ions shows that part of the sputtering is caused by momentum transfer.     

A multi-exciton model for the electronic sputtering of oxides

Three models are examined for the electronic sputtering by high energy heavy ions. It is found that the charged fraction of the sputtered particles is small (less than 10% in this study) and hence, Coulomb explosion model is unsound. According to the thermal spike model, rapid thermal quenching of the melted zone is anticipated, implying amorphisation of SiO₂ single crystal (c-SiO₂). X-ray diffraction results indicate no amorphisation of c-SiO₂, suggesting no melting. Moreover, the electronic sputtering yields of both c-SiO₂ and amorphous-SiO₂ (a-SiO₂) have been found to be the same. With these results and thermal properties of both c-SiO₂ and a-SiO₂, thermal spike model is examined further and appears to be unfavorable. A multi-exciton model is suggested for the electronic sputtering.     

News on sputter theory: Molecular targets, nanoparticle desorption, rough surfaces

Sputtering theory has existed as a mature and well-understood field of physics since the theory of collision-cascade sputtering has been developed in the late 1960s. In this presentation we outline several directions, in which the basic understanding of sputter phenomena has been challenged and new insight has been obtained recently.Sputtering of molecular solids: after ion impact on a molecular solid, not all of the impact energy is available for inducing sputtering. Part of the energy is converted into internal (rotational and vibrational) excitation of the target molecules, and part is used for molecule dissociation. Furthermore, exothermic or endothermic chemical reactions may further change the energy balance in the irradiated target.Nanoparticle desorption: usually, the flux of sputtered particles is dominated by monatomics; in the case of a pronounced spike contribution to sputtering, the contribution of clusters in the sputtered flux may become considerable. Here, we discuss the situation that nanoparticles were present on the surface, and outline mechanisms of how these may be desorbed (more or less intact) by ion or cluster impact.Rough surfaces: real surfaces are rough and contain surface defects (adatoms, surface steps, etc.). For grazing ion incidence, these influence the energy input into the surface dramatically. For such incidence angles sputtering vanishes for a flat terrace; however, ion impact close to a defect may lead to sputter yields comparable to those at normal incidence. In such cases sputtering also exhibits a pronounced azimuth and temperature dependence.     

Influence of low-energy bombardment of an RF magnetron sputtering discharge on texture formation and stress in ZnO films

In an oxygen planar RF magnetron sputtering discharge, the time-averaged flux and energy of positive ions drifting out of the plasma and striking the substrate surface have been determined as a function of RF discharge power over a range of 100 to 1000 W, and as a function of chamber pressure from 0.2 to 6 Pa by measurement of ion-current density and time-averaged plasma sheath potential at the substrate. These data were related to the resulting crystal structure of the deposited ZnO films which had been studied in detail using well-known methods of X-ray diffraction. The impact energy of the positive ions bombarding the growing film varies from some 10 eV to close 50 eV depending on magnetron RF discharge power and oxygen pressure, respectively. The incident ion flux was found to be below 1× 10¹⁵ cm⁻²s⁻¹ up to 1 × 10¹⁶ cm⁻²s⁻¹, a value of the same order of magnitude as that for the condensing rate of sputtered ZnO species. The structural results obtained show that both the ion energy and the ion flux in the range mentioned above cause significant changes in the degree of crystallinity, preferred orientation and texture sharpness of the deposited ZnO films. Furthermore, positive ion bombardment during film growth has been found to alter the ZnO unit cell dimension up to 2% relative to the equilibrium bulk or powder value which is responsible for the formation of strong compressive residual stress of up to several GPa within the ZnO film. Following these results, one of the criterions for preparing highly c-axis oriented ZnO films with columnar grain structure is to decrease both the energy and the flux of the positive ion bombardment without decreasing the deposition rate of ZnO species. At a such slight-bombardment RF magnetron deposition the compressive residual stress of the ZnO film can be reduced towards zero.     

RBS analyses of xenon-irradiated Ti and TiN films

TiN films of 30–300 nm thickness, deposited onto stainless steel via magnetron sputtering, and 10 μm thick Ti foils were irradiated with 80–360 keV Xe⁺ ions at influences of φ = 10¹⁵–10¹⁷ ions/cm². The Xe content was depth-profiled by means of 900 keV He⁺⁺ Rutherford backscattering. Irradiations of films with a thickness exceeding the ion range (at 80 and 250 keV) led to saturation effects due to sputtering and outdiffusion from the near-surface region. The sputtering yields deduced at low Xe fluences were compared to calculations for mono-elemental and compound sputtering. Surface blistering was observed after 250 keV saturation implantation into Ti. For TiN layers with a thickness comparable to the ion range, precipitation of the mixing gas at the interface was observed which finally led to the destruction of the layers. The dependence of the Xe fraction accumulated in the interface is discussed in terms of thermal-spike calculations.     

Collision cascade temperature

Interaction of a projectile with a solid has been considered in detail. It has been found that any collision cascade generated by a projectile can be characterized by the average kinetic energy of cascade atoms that represents an “instantaneous temperature” of the cascade during its very short lifetime (10⁻¹² s). We refer to this value as the “dynamic temperature” in order to emphasize the fact that cascade atoms are in a dynamic equilibrium and have a definite energy distribution. The dynamic temperature defines the electron distribution in the cascade area and, hence, the ionization probability of sputtered atoms. The energy distribution of cascade atoms and, as a consequence, the dynamic temperature can be found experimentally by measuring the energy distribution of sputtered atoms. The calculated dynamic temperature has been found to be in good agreement with the experimental data on ion formation in the case of cesium and oxygen ion sputtering of silicon. Based on the developed model we suggest an experimental technique for a radical improvement of the existing cascade sputtering models.     

Low-energy ion scattering and sputtering at grazing ion bombardment of clean and oxygen covered Ag(1 1 0) surface

The ion scattering and sputtering processes at low energy grazing N⁺ and Ne⁺ ion bombardment of clean and oxygen covered Ag(1 1 0) surface have been investigated by computer simulation in the binary collision approximation.

The spatial, angular and energy distributions of scattered, sputtered particles and desorbed molecules of oxygen as well as their yields versus the angle of incidence have been calculated. In these distributions the some characteristic peaks were observed and analysed. It was found that an adsorption layer plays a role of the additional surface barrier, i.e. it reflects leaving target atoms back to crystal. The azimuth angular dependencies of Ag sputtering yield and non-dissociative O₂ desorption yield at grazing incidence have been calculated. It was shown that these dependencies correlate the crystal orientation.     

Cu－37at％ Ag共晶合金的离子溅射研究

侧重研究了入射Ａｒ＋离子不同剂量轰击时表面微形貌和溅射原子角分布之间的关联，并建议用“元素按靶点表面微形貌特征局域富集模型”来解释溅射原子角分布形状以及择优溅射曲线的变化；发现其结果与实验相符合。     

Modelling the erosion of beryllium carbide surfaces

Redeposition of beryllium eroded from main chamber plasma facing components of ITER onto the divertor material carbon creates a mixed material, beryllium carbide Be₂C, whose interaction with the plasma is not well known. In this study, we have investigated the erosion of Be₂C by deuterium using molecular dynamics simulations and ERO impurity modelling. We found that beryllium sputters preferentially over carbon and identified the sputtering mechanism in the ion energy range 10-100 eV to be both physical and swift chemical sputtering. In addition to single atoms, different types of small molecules/clusters were sputtered, the most frequently occurring molecules being BeD, Be₂D, and CD. The sputtering threshold was found to lie between 10 and 15 eV. The MD sputtering yields were used in plasma impurity simulations, serving as a replacement for input data obtained with TRIM. This changes the accumulation rate of impurity Be in the divertor region compared to previous estimates.     

Electronic excitation in sputtered atoms and the oxygen effect

Bombardment of surfaces by ions gives rise to a variety of inelastic collision events leading to the ejection of excited atoms and ions. Such excited sputtered particles have been studied since more than 80 years through their optical emission, when they decay in front of the target to the electronic ground state, having lifetimes of 10⁻⁹ to 10⁻⁷ s, typically. Information on the energy distribution of such excited states can be obtained by two different techniques: light vs distance measurements (LvD) and by studying line profile broadening in light emission due to the Doppler effect. Only recently it has become possible to study in addition metastable excited atoms using laser induced fluorescence spectroscopy (LIF). Relative sputtering yields and energy distributions have been measured for such metastable states and two types can be distinguished. States with a very low excitation energy (0–0.3 eV), being sublevels of the electronic ground state, were found to have yields and energy distributions comparable to the electronic ground state, while metastable states at higher excitation energies (above 1 eV) seem to behave similar to short lived excited states, typically observed in secondary photon emission (BLE) with excitation energies in the range of 2–6 eV. This behaviour is also clearly visible with respect to oxygen surface coverage or increased near surface oxygen concentration where, similar to secondary ion emission, drastic changes in the yield by orders of magnitude have been found for excited atoms as well as for ions. In addition, under the same conditions a strong decrease in the sputtering yield of neutral ground state atoms has been observed for a number of metals. LIF results for highly excited metastable states are compared with recent results obtained by studying line profile broadening in light emission for Ca, Al and Cr targets. Different mechanisms that have been proposed to account for the observations will be discussed.     

MD simulation of cluster formation during sputtering

The cluster ejection due to cluster impact on a solid surface is studied through molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Simulations are performed for Cu cluster impacts on the Cu(1 1 1) surface for cluster energy 100 eV/atom, and for clusters of 6, 13, 28 and 55 atoms. Interatomic interactions are described by the AMLJ–EAM potential. The vibration energy spectrum is independent of the incident cluster size and energy. This comes from the fact that sputtered clusters become stable through the successive fragmentation of nascent large sputtered clusters. The vibration energy spectra for large sputtered clusters have a peak, whose energy corresponds to the melting temperature of Cu. The exponent of the power-law fit of the abundance distribution and the total sputtering yield for the cluster impacts are higher than that for the monatomic ion impacts with the same total energy, where the exponent δ is given by Y_n∝n^δ and Y_n is the yield of sputtered n-atom cluster. The exponent δ follows a unified function of the total sputtering yield, which is a monotonic increase function, and it is nearly equal to δ −3 for larger yield.     

Temperature and composition dependence of the high flux plasma sputtering yield of Cu-Li binary alloys

Because of its very high thermal conductivity, actively cooled copper is an attractive plasma-interactive material for long pulse fusion devices such as ETR and devices with very high wall power loadings, such as reversed-field pinched (RFPs) and the proposed compact ignition torus (CIT). Pure copper however, has an unacceptably low threshold energy for runaway self-sputtering. Low Z materials such as graphite and beryllium are not subject to runaway self-sputtering, but suffer from high light ion erosion rates and very nonuniform redeposition. It has been suggested that strongly segregating alloys such as Cu-Li might be used to provide a low-Z self-sustaining coating while maintaining the desirable redeposition, thermal and mechanical properties of the majority alloy component.High flux deuterium plasma sputtering and ion beam experiments have been performed on Cu-Li alloys to determine if the reduction in copper erosion previously predicted and observed in low flux ion beam experiments occurs at particle fluxes representative of an RFP first wall or tokamak limiter. Partial sputtering yields of the copper and lithium components have been measured as a function of alloy composition and sample temperature using optical plasma emission spectroscopy, weight loss and catcher foil techniques. It is found that the lithium sputtering yield increases with increasing sample temperature while the copper yield decreases by as much as two orders of magnitude. The temperature required to obtain the reduction in copper erosion is found to be a function of bulk lithium concentration. Consequences of these experimental results for anticipated erosion/redeposition properties are calculated, and the Cu-Li alloy is found to compare favorably with conventional low-Z materials.     

The angular distribution of sputtered silver atoms

Angular distributions of sputtered atoms have been determined for a Ag target under bombardment with 20 and 30 keV ²⁰Ne⁺, ⁴⁰Ar⁺, ⁸⁴Kr⁺ and ¹³²Xe⁺ ions both at normal and oblique angles of incidence. At normal ion incidence the distribution is symmet with respect to the target normal, while at oblique ion incidence the distribution is asymmetric in the plane containing the ion beam and the surface normal and symmetric in the transverse plane. Scanning electron microscopy of the sputtered surface shows the development of a high density array of cones in the bombarded area. The results are discussed from the viewpoint of sputtering from a very rough surface.