Influence of water contamination on the sputtering of silicon with low-energy argon ions investigated by molecular dynamics simulations.

ABSTRACT: Focused ion beams (FIB) are a common tool in nanotechnology for surface analysis, sample preparation for electron microscopy and atom probe tomography, surface patterning, nanolithography, nanomachining, and nanoprinting. For many of these applications, a precise control of ion-beam-induced processes is essential. The effect of contaminations on these processes has not been thoroughly explored but can often be substantial, especially for ultralow impact energies in the sub-keV range. In this paper we investigate by molecular dynamics (MD) simulations how one of the most commonly found residual contaminations in vacuum chambers (i.e., water adsorbed on a silicon surface) influences sputtering by 100 eV argon ions. The incidence angle was changed from normal incidence to close to grazing inc

SUBMITTER: Defoort-Levkov GRN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9520830 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature