Theoretical studies of fast He atom scattering from a W{100} surface

Abstract

Abstract Theoretical calculations of the scattering of fast neutral He atoms from W{100} are presented which are directly compared to the results from recent experiments of Nielsen and Delchar. The experiments which were performed for He atom energies between 150 and 1000 eV, and for incident polar angles between 0° and 65° as measured from the surface normal, displayed peaks in the polar angle distributions at 72°, 56° and ±10°. The results from classical dynamics calculations are employed here to explain the scattering phenomena that give rise to these peaks in the polar distributions. The calculations indicate that the peak at 72° is primarily due to scattering from the first layer W atoms. The peaks at ± 10° and 56° are unusual in that there are a multitude of different collision paths that result in the He atom being scattered into the same final angle. The peaks at ± 10° result from He atoms scattering mainly from the second, third and fourth layers of W atoms. The He atoms are focused on the outward path into the near normal direction by two first and two second layer W atoms. Subsurface scattering is also responsible for the peak at 56°. In this case the channel of first and second layer W atoms that focuses the outgoing He atoms is oriented at 54.7° with respect to the surface normal. It is proposed that slight variations of the experimental data from the calculated values are due to surface reconstruction of W{100} and that a more thorough analysis could reveal the microscopic nature of this structure.