Abstract
Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of ion-solid interactions and numerical solutions of coupled reaction-diffusion equations for surface vacancies and adatoms are used to investigate layer-by-layer sputtering of Si(111) surfaces by 225 eV xenon ions. The model of Bedrossian and co-workers that low-energy sputtering is dominated by the creation of isolated surface vacancies and nucleation of vacancy islands is not supported by our model. Our MD calculations show that, besides a few sputtered surface atoms, additional surface vacancies are caused by the excitation of surface atoms in adatom positions. These additional surface vacancies and adatoms have a great influence on the sputtering kinetics. In each collision, surface vacancies are produced not in isolation but in clusters. The MD results are taken as input for the solution of the reaction-diffusion equations.
Published Version
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