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Published June 2, 1996 | public
Journal Article

Molecular dynamics simulations of inner shell electronic energy losses in cluster-surface collisions

Abstract

Previous molecular dynamics simulations have predicted that in energetic cluster-surface collisions atoms can be core-excited leading to Auger transitions outside the target [5]. However, in these previous simulations the inelastic energy losses accompanying core-excitations were not taken into account. In our simulations a simple critical distance of approach to detect inner-shell excitations is used. Energy is removed from atoms in a single time step by moving the atoms apart from each other, taking away potential energy. Molecular dynamics simulations are carried out for 63-atom Al clusters and composite Al_(38)Au_(25)clusters incident on Au(100) targets and Au(111) targets. Each event is simulated with and without inelastic losses. Incident cluster energies ranged from 30 to 100 keV. Our results indicate a threshold for significant inelastic loss effects at approximately 70 keV/cluster, i.e., about 1 keV/atom. Above the threshold energy region, sputtered atom and ejected-cluster atom energy distributions were affected substantially.

Additional Information

© 1996 Elsevier Science B.V. Received 8 September 1995. Supported in part by the National Science Foundation (Grant DMR93-18931 at Caltech and DMR93-12468 at CSUF). We wish to thank the California Institute of Technology for its support of the Physics 11 program that made SJT's participation in this project possible.

Additional details

Created:
August 18, 2023
Modified:
October 17, 2023