Surfactant sputtering

Sputter erosion of materials is among the most important techniques for fabricating advanced thin film coatings. Sputter processes are also of considerable relevance for surface polishing down to an atomic scale, nano-structuring of surfaces as dot and ripple patterns and micro-machining of materials using focused ion beams or reactive ion etching. We present a new, versatile sputter technique utilizing the steady state coverage of a substrate surface with up to 10¹⁶ cm⁻² of foreign or self atoms simultaneously during sputter erosion by combined ion irradiation and atom deposition. These surfactant atoms (surface active agents) strongly modify the substrate sputter yield on atomic to macroscopic length scales. Depending on the surfactant–substrate combination, the novel technique allows enhanced smoothing of surfaces, the generation of novel surface patterns and nanostructures and the controlled shaping of surfaces on the nanometer scale. We present selected examples of surface morphology evolution, smoothing of surfaces and shaping of surfaces to demonstrate the capabilities of the new surfactant sputtering technique.