Evidence for production of inner-shell vacancies in slow multicharged F ions interacting with a Cu surface

Abstract

Electron energy distributions have been measured for Fq+ ions (∽q×10 keV, q=2−8) interacting with a Cu surface at 5° grazing incidence. The measurements show evidence for K-shell excitation in Fq+ (q≤6) ions. The resultant inner-shell vacancy production is understood in terms of calculated molecular orbital diagrams which qualitatively describe the close collisions between the incident ion and the target atoms. When the K-shell vacancy is created in the collision, the mean KLL Auger electron energy shows a shift to higher energies relative to that observed for K-vacancies carried into the collision. This shift occurs since the KLL Auger decay for a vacancy created in the collision is constrained to take place late in the neutralization process, where the K- and L-shell energies differ from those in the less screened ion.