Electronic Sputtering of Nanodimensional Hydrogenated Amorphous Carbon and Copper Oxide Thin Films

Abstract

Electronic sputtering of carbon from hydrogenated amorphous carbon (a-C:H/Si) film and oxygen from copper oxide (CuO/Si) film at different electronic energy loss (S e ) value is reported. The sputtering is monitored by online elastic recoil detection analysis (ERDA) technique and the yield (sputtered atoms/incident ion) is determined. Two important results emerging out from this study are: (i) much higher yield of C and O from a-C:H and CuO films as compared to conventional kinetic sputtering and (ii) sputtering yield increases with increase in S e in both the cases. These observations are understood on the basis of thermal spike model of ion-solid interaction.