Energy effects on the sputtering yield of Si bombarded with gas cluster ion beams

Abstract

Gas cluster ion presents various irradiation effects such as high sputtering yields. It is important to study the optimum condition of incident cluster ion beam for applications in surface modification technology. In this study, the effects of incident energy and chamber pressure on the sputtering yield with gas cluster ion bombardment were investigated. The incident mean cluster size was 2000 atoms/ion and incident energy was 10–80 keV. The number of collisions with residual gas during transportation was in the range 1–20. The sputtering yield with gas cluster ion beam increased nonlinearly with increasing incident cluster energy. However, cluster ion beam easily lose their energy by collision with residual gas, and the sputtering yield decreased rapidly. For using gas cluster ion beam efficiently, the collision frequency along transportation should be kept less than a few times.