Bringa EM, Johnson RE. Coulomb explosion and thermal spikes.
PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS 2002;
88:165501. [PMID:
11955237 DOI:
10.1103/physrevlett.88.165501]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 30] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/22/2001] [Indexed: 05/23/2023]
Abstract
A fast ion can electronically excite a solid producing a track of damage, a process initially used to detect energetic particles but now used to alter materials. From the seminal paper by Fleischer et al. [Phys. Rev. 156, 353 (1967)] to the present, "Coulomb explosion" and thermal spike models have been often treated as competing models for describing ion track effects. Here molecular dynamics simulations of electronic sputtering, a surface manifestation of track formation, show that in the absence of significant quenching Coulomb explosion in fact produces a spike at high excitation density, but the standard spike models are incorrect.
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