Abstract
AbstractWe report sputtering measurements of anorthite‐like material, taken to be representative of soils found in the lunar highlands, impacted by singly and multicharged ions representative of the solar wind. The ions investigated include protons, as well as singly and multicharged Ar ions (as proxies for the nonreactive heavy solar wind constituents), in the charge state range +1 to +9, at fixed solar wind‐relevant impact velocities of 165 and 310 km/s (0.25 keV/amu and 0.5 keV/amu). A quartz microbalance approach (QCM) for determination of total sputtering yields was used. The goal of the measurements was to determine the sputtering contribution of the heavy, multicharged minority solar wind constituents in comparison to that due to the dominant H+ fraction. The QCM results show a yield increase of a factor of about 80 for Ar+ versus H+ sputtering and an enhancement by a factor of 1.67 between Ar9+ and Ar+, which is a clear indication of a potential sputtering effect.
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