COMPUTER CALCULATIONS OF SINGLE-CRYSTAL SPUTTERING BY LOW-ENERGY IONS

A study of copper crystal sputtering by 10-2500 eV Ar ions was perform ed by molecular dynamic computer simulation. Good agreement with exper iment was obtained in spatial and energy distributions of sputtered at oms and in energy dependence of sputtering. A sharp peak was observed in energy spectra of atoms moving in the uppermost (001)Cu layer, appe aring due to correlated collisions for ion energies E(0) less than or equal to 50 eV. The nonmonotonic dependence of average acid maximal en ergy transferred by ions to atoms in (001) layers on the layer number was established. It was found that there is an optimum energy of the i ncoming ions which gives to the greatest number of atoms in upper laye rs with energy higher than some chosen threshold.