Spontaneous Pattern Formation on Ion Bombarded Si(001)

Pattern formation on surfaces undergoing low-energy ion bombardment is a common phenomenon. Here, a recently developed in situ spectroscopic light scattering technique was used to monitor periodic ripple evolution on Si(001) during Ar(+) sputtering. Analysis of the rippling kinetics indicated that under high flux sputtering at low temperatures the concentration of mobile species on the surface is saturated, and, surprisingly, is both temperature and ion flux independent. This is due to an effect of ion collision cascades on the concentration of mobile species. This new understanding of surface dynamics during sputtering allowed us to measure straighforwardly the activation energy for atomic migration on the surface to be 1.2+0.1 eV. The technique is generalizable to any material, including high temperature and insulating materials for which surface migration energies are notoriously difficult to measure