Electronic stopping power threshold of sputtering in yttrium iron garnet

To study the sputtering induced by the electronic stopping power dE/dx, single crystals of yttrium iron garnet Y3Fe5O12 (or YIG) have been irradiated at room temperature with 195 MeV Kr-86, 400 MeV Ta-181 and 150 MeV U-238 ions beam. The number of sputtered iron and yttrium atoms collected upon aluminium foil placed in front of the target was measured using Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RES) with a 2 MeV He-4 Beam, The experimental results show that the electronic stopping power threshold of sputtering T-s in this garnet is 16 +/- 3 keV, This value is four times higher than the electronic stopping power threshold damage creation T-e in the same range of velocity ions, The sputtering yield increases linearly within the experimental errors with dE/dx. Moreover, the sputtering is non-stoichiometric.