Primary ion beam energy effects on secondary ion emission from Ni(001)c(2 × 2)-CO: Classical dynamics calculations and sims

The variation of the SIMS spectra of Ni(001)c(2 × 2)-CO induced by bombardment of Ar⁺ primary ions with kinetic energy between 300 and 1200 eV has been examined in detail. The purpose of the study is to examine the influence of primary ion energy on a number of experimental observables and to test the accuracy of classical dynamics calculations for neutral particles in predicting the experimental results for ejected ions. The calculations were performed using two extreme forms of the Ar⁺ -substrate interaction potential to examine the sensitivity of the results to the parameters that need to be included in the model. We find excellent agreement between the NiCO⁺/Ni⁺ ion yield ratio measured between 300–1200 eV Ar⁺ ion energy and the computational results if the Molière form of the ion-substrate potential is used and if the calculated results are corrected by including an image force. The calculated angular distributions of the ejected particles also agree well with those observed experimentally. From the calculations we see that the extent of CO fragmentation relative to the amount of molecular CO ejection is roughly constant in the 300–1200 eV beam energy range with a slight increase seen at lower (~ 300 eV) energies. The implications of these results are discussed in terms of our ability to study the chemistry and structure of surfaces with SIMS.