CLUSTER FORMATION IN SPUTTERING - A MOLECULAR-DYNAMICS STUDY USING THE MD MC-CORRECTED EFFECTIVE-MEDIUM POTENTIAL/

We report on a molecular dynamics simulation of cluster emission durin g sputtering of metals using a new many-body potential developed by De Pristo and co-workers, For the specific,case of silver as a sample tar get material, it is shown that this potential allows a much more reali stic description of small clusters than the EAM potential used in our previous work. While this has a relatively large effect on the relativ e abundance of clusters within the total flux of sputtered material, o ther cluster properties like kinetic energy gy distributions and inter nal excitation are found to be less affected. By comparison with corre sponding experimental data, we conclude that the formation of sputtere d silver clusters can now be almost quantitatively modeled by the simu lation. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.