Abstract
Recent experiments have shown that when gold atom clusters bombard copper with an energy of 10 keV/atom, the mean range of the gold atoms is independent of the cluster size, but the straggling (broadening) of the depth distribution is an increasing function of the cluster size. The same set of experiments did not show this effect when the target was amorphous Si. Using molecular dynamics computer simulations we have studied this effect by simulating Au cluster bombardment of Cu and Si with energies 1--10 keV/atom. We found that in Cu, the mean range is not fully independent of the cluster size, but the dependence on cluster size is so weak it is hard to observe experimentally. On the other hand, we found a strong enhancement of the straggling in Cu, but not in Si, in agreement with the experiments. By following the time dependence of the straggling we show that this is due to the massive heat spike effects which are present in Cu but not Si.
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