SPUTTERING INDUCED ROUGHENING EFFECTS ON ION-BEAM PROFILING OF MULTILAYERS

The surface roughening during ion sputtering and related broadening of the distribution profiles of composition of originally sharp interfac es of multilayer structures obtained by measurements of surface compos ition during depth profiling by ion sputtering methods are considered, The process of surface roughening is induced by the stochastic nature of the atom ejection from the ion bombarding surface. It is shown tha t the increase of surface roughness with sputtering time as t(1/2) lea ds to the decrease of the height of amplitudes of the constituent comp onents of surface concentrations in time approaching the steady state Values, The steady state values of surface concentrations of constitue nt components are obtained from the mass conservation law.