Crater function approach to ion-induced nanoscale pattern formation: Craters for flat surfaces are insufficient

Abstract

In the crater function approach to the erosion of a solid surface by a broad ion beam, the average crater produced by the impact of an ion is used to compute the constant coefficients in the continuum equation of motion for the surface. We extend the crater function formalism so that it includes the dependence of the crater on the curvature of the surface at the point of impact. We then demonstrate that our formalism yields the correct coefficients for the Sigmund model of ion sputtering if terms up to second order in the spatial derivatives are retained. In contrast, if the curvature dependence of the crater is neglected, the coefficients can deviate substantially from their exact values. Our results show that accurately estimating the coefficients using craters obtained from molecular dynamics simulations will require significantly more computational power than was previously thought.