Fluence dependent changes of surface morphology and sputtering yield of iron: Comparison of experiments with SDTrimSP-2D

The influence of surface morphology modifications on the sputtering yield of thin Fe films by monoenergetic Ar ions is studied by using a highly sensitive quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) technique. The morphology changes are induced by prolonged sputtering up to a total Ar fluence of 8 × 1021 m−2. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) measurements are performed to analyse the sample topography before and after irradiation and to determine surface roughness parameters. Numerical modelling with the codes SDTrimSP and SDTrimSP-2D are performed for comparison. Our investigations show that by using the local distribution of projectile impact angles, as derived from AFM measurements, as well as the elemental composition of the samples as an input to the codes SDTrimSP and SDTrimSP-2D the agreement between experiment and simulations is substantially improved.