Electronic sputtering of nanometric cluster ions of gold from ultradispersed targets of gold by fission fragments; masses and energies of cluster ions

• Published in: Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section B, Beam interactions with materials and atoms Beam interactions with materials and atoms, 1997-02, Vol.122 (3), p.329-334
• Main Authors: Baranov, I., Bogdanov, S., Novikov, A., Obnorskii, V., Kozlov, B.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0168-583X; 1872-9584
• DOI: 10.1016/S0168-583X(96)00657-X

Sputtering of superheavy negative cluster ions of gold from ultradispersed targets — gold islet films (islet sizes being 3–20 nm) by 252Cf fission fragments is studied. Mass-to-charge ratio ( m q ) of the desorbed particles within the range 1 × 10 5–5 × 10 7 amu/e as well as their initial energies are measured by means of a special mass-spectrograph. It is established that desorbed cluster ions have initial kinetic energies of tens-hundreds eV per charge unit. With this, small cluster ions have larger initial energies per charge unit than larger cluster ions. It is also shown that for ∼ 70% cluster ions desorbed from the target with islets sized 7.5–15 nm m q is 6 × 10 5–4 × 10 6 amu/e which is on average 5–10 times smaller than the mass values for the islets. The results are discussed.