SLOWING DOWN AND SCATTERING OF IONS IN SOLIDS

Abstract

The interaction of particle beams with solids yields three parts, i.e. reflected particles, penetrating particles and trapped particles. At very low energies particle reflection is dominant, at very high energies penetration is the most important effect. Trapped particles are the result of energy loss processes, which on the other hand cause radiation damage in the solid. In the energy range discussed here, i.e. above energies where quantum effects, diffraction etc. are important and below energies where nuclear reactions, relativistic effects etc. may occur, the particle trajectories are classical. The energy loss process can be treated separately as nuclear and electronic stopping power. The collisions of the projectiles with target atoms are hence binary collisions involving a properly chosen screened Coulomb-potential. In single crystals the structural properties enable channeling, which is a very useful tool in solid state analysis. The electronic stopping includes contributions from single collision processes and collective excitations. Both effects can be described by a dielectric response function. The range of applications covers analytical methods, means to modify solid state properties and also the production of thin films.