Kinetic energy distributions of neutral In and In2 sputtered by polyatomic ion bombardment

Kinetic energy distributions of neutral In monomers and In2 dimers sputtered from a polycrystalline indium surface under bombardment with 5 keV/atom Au1− and Au2− projectiles have been investigated by means of laser postionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry. Results show that 5 keV Au1 bombardment leads to results in full compliance with linear cascade sputtering theory. For polyatomic ion bombardment, we find a clear transition to a collisional spike dominated emission process. The spike contribution appears as a low-energy part in the sputtered flux which increases with increasing projectile nuclearity and energy. We show that, the velocity spectrum associated with the low-energy contribution is virtually identical for sputtered monomers and dimers. This finding has important implications with respect to the particle emission mechanism under polyatomic projectile bombardment.