Two-atom model for the calculation of surface blocking in medium and high energy ion scattering

A two-atom blocking model has been developed to analyze surface blocking patterns recently obtained in medium energy ion scattering experiments. In the model the mean square thermal vibration amplitude of a surface atom can be used as a fitting parameter in comparison with experimental results. Anisotropic surface vibrations have been taken into account by assuming a non-spherical Gaussian probability distribution for the thermal displacement of the surface atom. In addition, some analytical expressions have been derived for the effective nuber of target atoms contributing to the yield of ions backscattered into a blocking direction.