Combined molecular dynamics and analytical model for repetitive cluster bombardment of solids

Molecular dynamics simulations of repetitive bombardment of solids by keV cluster beams have generated so much data that easy interpretations are not possible. Moreover, although the MD simulations remove 3-4 nm of material, that is not sufficient material to determine a depth profile. The recently developed steady-state statistical sputtering model (SS-SSM) uses information from the MD simulations and incorporates it into a set of differential equations to predict a depth profile. In this study the distributions that provide the input to the SS-SSM are compared for simulations of 15 keV bombardment of Ag(1 1 1) by C60, Au3 and Ar872 cluster beams.