The dimer sputtering mechanism of Cu(001) at low bombarding energy

The emission of dimers during bombardment of a Cu(001) surface by Cu atoms of 300 and 1000eV energy is studied. A molecular dynamics simulation method based on many-body potentials is employed. At 300eV bombarding energy, around 81% of the sputtered dimers originate from second-nearest neighbor sites. 58% of these are ejected in a collision sequence correlated by the projectile. These dimers lead to a second maximum in the kinetic energy distribution of emitted dimers at around 8eV, besides a maximum at 4eV. Only the latter is found at 1000eV bombarding energy. As in this case mostly next-neighbor surface atoms are sputtered, the specific emission mechanism found at 300eV is irrelevant. Finally, we show that the direction of the angular momentum of sputtered dimers is correlated with the original surface site of the dimers.