Evolution of the surface structures of solids under irradiation with high energy heavy ions

The results on the study of surface structure of solids, like metals, metal alloys, amorphous metal alloys and highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) under irradiation with heavy sup 8 sup 6 Kr ions (ion energy is 245 MeV, irradiation fluences are 10 sup 1 sup 3 , 10 sup 1 sup 4 , 10 sup 1 sup 5 cm sup - sup 2) and sup 2 sup 0 sup 9 Bi (ion energy is 705 MeV, irradiation fluences are 10 sup 1 sup 2 , 10 sup 1 sup 3 cm sup - sup 2) are presented. The sputtering coefficients for metals (Ni, W, Au), stainless steel Cr18Ni10, amorphous alloy Ni sub 5 sub 8 Nb sub 4 sub 2 and HOPG are measured. It is shown that the sputtering coefficients of annealed polycrystals (Ni, Au) and single crystals (W, HOPG) are not large at low defect concentration in materials. At this stage, the sputtering of grain boundaries predominantly takes place. The sputtering yields become to increase significantly with the growth of damage concentration at ion fluences of the order of 10 sup 1 sup 5 cm sup - sup 2. Analogous results were obtained for amorphous alloys, which do not have the long-range order (only short-range order), and for cold-deformed Au samples. When ionized energy loss increases, individual craters begin to appear on the irradiated surface of HOPG at the place of the passage of sup 2 sup 0 sup 9 Bi ions, but their concentration is about 2-3 % from ion fluence. The applicability of thermal spike model for the explanation of such behaviour is discusse