Surface Ejection in Single Crystal Sputtering

Abstract

Surface atom ejection, an essential component of single crystal sputtering phenomena, is investigated for a realistic surface model using computer simulation. The dynamics of ejection are analyzed in terms of the collective attractive field of the surface and binary repulsive collisions of the ejected atom with its neighbors in the surface. In-surface correlated collision sequences initiated by ejection are also discussed in detail. It is found that ejection from the surface layer is a fundamentally anisotropic process exhibiting a complex range of interaction types.