Desorption of gold nanoclusters (2–30 nm) under low excitation of their electronic subsystem by Ar ions (14 keV/nm)

Gold nanodispersed targets with islands-grains sized 2–30 nm were irradiated by Ar7+ ions with the energy of 45.5 MeV and (dE/dx)e = 14.2 keV/nm in gold. The desorbed gold nanoclusters were studied by TEM method. For all the targets desorption of intact gold nanoclusters is observed. However, for inelastic stopping of monatomic Ar ions in gold of 14.2 keV/nm desorption of nanoclusters is observed only up to ∼25 nm. The yield of the desorbed nanoclusters considerably decreases from 3 to 0.02 cluster/ion with the increase of the mean size of the desorbed nanoclusters from 3 to 14.2 nm. The results are discussed.