Measurement of energy and angular distributions of secondary ions in the sputtering of gold by swift Au-n clusters: Study of emission mechanisms

Energy and angular distributions of negative ions (Au–, Au2-, Au3-, and Au5-) emitted from gold target bombarded by Au, Au4, and Au9 projectiles at 200 keV/atom were measured with a multipixel position sensitive detector. The angular distributions are symmetrical with respect to the normal to the target surface and forward peaked. They depend on the type of emitted ions, on the emission energy, and on the projectile size. More forward directed emission is observed with Au9 projectiles. The secondary ion energy distributions obtained with Au and Au4 projectiles are well reproduced by a sum of linear collision cascades and thermal spike processes. However, in the case of Au9 projectiles the energy distributions are better described by using a simple spike model with two different average temperature regimes: the first one corresponds to high emission energy occurring in the early stage of the whole process, and the second to the low energy component.