Effects of post-desorption collisions on the energy distribution of SiCl molecules pulsed-laser desorbed from Cl-covered Si surfaces: Monte-Carlo simulations compared to experiments

Abstract

Si surfaces covered with up to a monolayer of chlorine by exposure to a low chlorine pressure have been irradiated with nanosecond excimer-laser pulses at a fluence just large enough to melt the surface. Angle-resolved time-of-flight (TOF) distributions and surface temperatures have been measured as a function of chlorine dose between laser pulses. The TOF distributions can be fitted well by Maxwell-Boltzmann (MB) distributions for all coverages and at all desorption angles. With increasing coverage, the intensity and kinetic energy distributions become increasingly peaked along the surface normal. Monte-Carlo simulations of the effect of post-desorption collisions, occurring when many molecules are desorbed within a very short time, reproduce the experimental results quite well. It is shown that just a few collisions per molecule are sufficient to convert any initial desorption distribution into a MB one.