Surface nanostructures formation induced by highly charged ions: Kinetic and potential energy dependence

Abstract

We applied the thermal spike model to interpret the interplay of the kinetic energy with the potential energy in the nanostructures formation of various materials, i.e., the two dimensional freestanding monolayer MoS2, mica, KCl and CaF2, induced by xenon ions for the wide range of the charge state (15+ to 50+) and the kinetic energy from several keV up to 10 MeV. The deposition of the potential energy in the solid is extracted from the non-equilibrium charge state distributions when the highly charged ions are transporting in the solids. Also, the experiments of the nanostructure formation on the surfaces of the mica samples induced by Xeq+ (28+ to 35+) at the kinetic energies of 66.7 keV and 288 keV have been performed and the potential energy thresholds for the hillock formation have been measured to support our calculations and explanations. The increase of the damage pore radius as a function of the potential energy has been interpreted for the freestanding monolayer MoS2. For the bulk materials (mica, KCl and CaF2), the interplay of the kinetic energy and the potential energy has been calculated and discussed and the general agreements have been reached between the model calculations and the experimental results.