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G. Szabo, M. Lehner, L. Bischoff, W. Pilz, H. Muckenhuber, U. Kentsch, F. Aumayr, N. Klinger, R. Wilhelm:
"Nano-hillock formation on CaF₂ due to individual slow Au-cluster impacts";
Nanotechnology, 32 (2021), 3557011 - 3557017.

We present a direct way to generate hillock-like nanostructures on CaF2(111) ionic crystals by
kinetic energy deposition upon Au-cluster irradiation. In the past, the formation of similar
nanostructures has been observed for both slow highly charged ions and swift heavy ions.
However, in these cases, potential energy deposition of highly charged ions or the electronic
energy loss of fast heavy ions, respectively, first leads to strong electronic excitation of the target
material before the excitation energy is transferred to the lattice by efficient electron-phonon
coupling. We now show that the kinetic energy deposited by slow single Au-clusters directly in
the lattice of CaF2(111) leads to the production of nano-hillocks very similar to those found with
slow highly charged and swift heavy ions, with heights between 1 and 2 nm. Our results are in
good agreement with previous cluster irradiation studies regarding energy deposition and hence
nano-structuring of surfaces, and we present Au-cluster irradiation as novel tool to fine-tune
nanostructure formation.

nanostructure formation, nano-hillocks, LMAIS, cluster-irradiation, CaF2

http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1361-6528/ac037e

https://publik.tuwien.ac.at/files/publik_296202.pdf