Sputtering experiments with silver single crystals and the channeling phenomena

Sputtering yields of monocrystalline silver under irradiation with 7-30 keV Ar⁺, Kr⁺ and Xe⁺ ions, not reported earlier, have been determined. The yield has been found to depend strongly on the orientation of the crystal and mass of the impinging ion. Onderdelinden's model based on Lindhard's theory of Channeling is found to describe satisfactorily, the observed orientation and ion-mass dependence of the yields for the ions of energy ～10 keV or above. The role of the barrier potential approximated in the model in predicting the experimental results is discussed.