Model on degradation of thick solid molecular targets by energetic ion and electron beams

Abstract

Abstract Thick targets are those inside which incoming projectiles lose all or most of their kinetic energy. One of the main characteristics of these systems is the highly inhomogeneous degradation of molecular samples as a function of depth; as a consequence, the molecular destruction rate during irradiation differs substantially from the expected exponential decrease. The proposed model predicts the profile of the molecular damage as function of depth in the target as well as the evolution of the molecular column density as a function of beam fluence. Codes, such as TRIM and CASINO, are used to extract collisional information on the projectile-solid interaction which, in turn, is used to determine the dependence of destruction cross sections on depth. Theoretical predictions are presented. Comparisons with experimental data are referenced.