A coincidence counting study of polyatomic ion induced sputtering

Abstract

Coincidence counting methods were used to examine the desorption of secondary ions from a CsI surface via keV atomic and polyatomic projectile impacts. A correlation between the emission of I− and CsI−2 secondary ions was attributed to the common chemical origin of the ions. The degree to which I− and CsI−2 were correlated was observed to change as a function of the kinetic energy and complexity of the primary ion as well as the yield of I−. This is attributed to a change in the relative importance of competing ion formation processes as a function of the energy in the desorption site.