| 1. |
- Biber, H., et al.
(författare)
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Sputtering Behavior of Rough, Polycrystalline Mercury Analogs
- 2022
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Ingår i: The Planetary Science Journal. - : Institute of Physics (IOP). - 2632-3338. ; 3:12
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The solar wind continuously impacts on rocky bodies in space, eroding their surface, thereby contributing significantly to the exosphere formations. The BepiColombo mission to Mercury will investigate the Hermean exosphere, which makes an understanding of the precise formation processes crucial for evaluation of the acquired data. We therefore developed an experimental setup with two microbalances that allows us to compare the sputter behavior of deposited thin solid layers with that of real mineral samples in the form of pressed powder. In addition, this technique is used to study the angular distribution of the sputtered particles. Using 4 keV He+ and 2 keV Ar+ ions, the sputter behavior of pellets of the minerals enstatite (MgSiO3) and wollastonite (CaSiO3) is studied, because these minerals represent analogs for the surface of the planet Mercury or the Moon. Pellets of powdered enstatite show significantly lower sputter yields than thin amorphous enstatite films prepared by pulsed laser deposition. 3D simulations of sputtering based on surface topography data from atomic force microscopy show that the observed reduction can be explained by the much rougher pellet surface alone. We therefore conclude that sputter yields from amorphous thin films can be applied to surfaces of celestial bodies exposed to ion irradiation, provided the effects of surface roughness, as encountered in realistic materials in space, are adequately accounted for. This also implies that taking surface roughness into account is important for modeling of the interaction of the solar wind with the surface of Mercury.
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| 2. |
- Cupak, C., et al.
(författare)
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Sputter yields of rough surfaces : Importance of the mean surface inclination angle from nano- to microscopic rough regimes
- 2021
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Ingår i: Applied Surface Science. - : Elsevier. - 0169-4332 .- 1873-5584. ; 570
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The roughness of a surface is known to have a strong influence on the sputtering process. Commonly used 1D Monte Carlo codes for calculating sputter yields show good agreement with experimental data only for comparably flat surfaces, whereas local ion incidence angles, shadowing and redeposition influence the sputter yields in both magnitude and angular dependence on rough surfaces. In the present work, we therefore investigated tungsten samples of largely different roughness, characterised by atomic force and confocal microscopy. A highly sensitive quartz crystal microbalance was used to determine sputter yields during ion irradiation. Low ion fluences were applied to ensure that the surface morphology did not change during irradiation. The results were used to benchmark our new ray-tracing simulation code SPRAY, which can take microscopy images without limitations in size as input. SPRAY was furthermore applied to perform systematic simulations for artificially roughened and computer-generated surfaces. A clear result was that the governing parameter for description of the sputtering behaviour is the mean value of the surface inclination angle distribution, rather than the commonly used root mean square roughness. Our simulations show that this parameter is universally applicable for a wide range of different surface structures.
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