Effects of incident cluster size, substrate temperature, and incident energy on bombardment of Ni clusters onto Cu (0Â 0Â 1) surface studied using molecular dynamics simulation

► The penetration depth and substrate surface damage increase with increasing cluster size. ► The self-diffusion coefficient and the penetration depth of a cluster significantly increase with temperature. ► The number of volcano-like defects and the penetration depth increase with incident energy. ► High sputtering yield can be obtained by increasing the incident energy at high temperature.