The Effect of the Molecular Mass on the Sputtering of Si, SiC, Ge, and GaAs by Electrosprayed Nanodroplets at Impact Velocities up to 17 km/s

Abstract

Electrosprayed nanodroplets impacting on covalently bonded materials at velocities of a few kilometers per second strongly modify their surfaces by sputtering atoms, amorphizing the region surrounding the impact, and carving craters of comparable size. This article investigates the effects of the projectile's molecular mass on the phenomenology of the impact on Si, SiC, Ge, and GaAs at impact velocities significantly higher than previously studied. An appropriate range of molecular mass is covered by electrospraying the ionic liquids ethylammonium nitrate, EAN, and 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl) imide, EMI-Im, which have molecular masses of 108 and 391 amu, respectively. The beamlets are characterized with the time-of-flight technique to determine the impact velocity, stagnation pressure, and molecular kinetic energy of the projectiles, and to estimate their average diameters. The ranges of these parameters are 7–17 km/s, 40–190 GPa, 50–420 eV, and 10–14 nm. Under these condition...