High-energy cluster—surface collisions

Abstract

Molecular dynamics simulations of high-energy collisions (initial kinetic energies E o k = 10−10 6 eV) of Kr n , ( n=8−512) clusters with a rigid Pt surface provide a microscopic description of the formation of an intracluster shock wave (temperatures up to 3 × 10 5 K and cluster internal potential energies up to ∼ 10 4 eV) on a time scale of 10–500 fs, which is accompanied by novel ultrafast energy acquisition processes. High-energy ((10−5) × 10 3 eV) high-yield (0.5%–10%) interatomic KrKr pair repulsive excitation is exhibited, being manifested in outer-shell electronic excitations and ionization, multiple ionization and Auger processes.