Molecular dynamics simulations of sputtering from liquid Ga-In targets

We have used molecular dynamics (MD) simulation techniques to generate liquid Ga-In alloy targets, pure liquid gallium targets, and pure liquid indium targets for use in sputtering simulations. The sputtering simulations were carried out for normally incident 1.5 and 3.0 keV Ar^+ ions. Yields, energy distributions, and angular distributions of the sputtered atoms were obtained, along with information on the depth of origin of ejected atoms. Some limited results on the ejection of small clusters from these targets also were obtained. Our results are in good agreement with the experimental sputtering data of Dumke et al., Surf. Sci. 124 (1983) 407 [1] and Hubbard et al., Nucl. Instr. and Meth. B 36 (1989) 395 [2] for these systems. The simulations support their observations [1,2] that most of the ejected atoms originate in the topmost layer of the target.