Study of the formation and unimolecular fragmentation of SinOm+ clusters under ion bombardment

The dependences of the emission and fragmentation of clusters sputtered by Xe⁺ ions from the surface of Si _n O _m ⁺ on the oxygen pressure near the bombarded surface are studied using secondary ion mass spectrometry. It is shown that the process of Si _n O _m ⁺ cluster formation under ion bombardment can be described within the framework of the mechanism of combinatorial synthesis by taking into account the mutual reversibility of the reactions of formation and unimolecular decay.