Sputtering and crater formation in oxidic materials due to ion induced sputtering dependent on energy

Abstract

The etch rate of material due to ion bombardment is the amount of material removed per unit time at a given set of beam parameters. Usually the etch rate is given in units of length time . The length is measured as the depth of the craters formed by the ion beam. With insulating materials we obtain a dependence of the etch rate on charging effects. Also the crater formation is influenced by charging, i.e. “walls” are found to build around the craters. We studied these effects dependent on energy in different oxidic materials, i.e. yttrium-iron garnets (YIG) and gadolinium-gallium garnets (GGG).