Comparative study of silicon and germanium sputtering by 1–20 keV Ar ions

Sputtering of amorphous Si and Ge targets by 1–20 keV Ar ions has been studied using the binary-collision simulation. Special attention was given to the angular distribution of sputtered atoms; namely, the energy dependence of the exponent n in the function cosnθ approximating the angular distribution (θ is the polar ejection angle). It has been shown that at all incident energies the value of n for Ge is much higher than that for Si, which is in contrast with analytical predictions. The reasons for this discrepancy are discussed in detail. In addition, the simulated values of the sputtering yield are also considered and compared with the data from the literature.