Surface segregation of Ti atoms during NiTi alloy sputtering

The paper addresses NiTi alloy sputtering by 9 keV He and Ar ions and discusses the experiment performed by V.S. Chernysh et al. about 10 years ago. The binary collision simulation has been applied to extract the concentrations of surface Ni and Ti atoms from the experimental data. The results of simulations favor segregation of Ti for both He and Ar ion bombardment. The effect of non-symmetric surface collisions (Ti on Ni and Ni on Ti) was found to be negligible. A pronounced effect of the interatomic (target-target) potential is noted.