Giant sputtering rates from SiO (SiO2) irradiated by carbon clusters

The irradiation of SiO and SiO2 insulator layers with 0.5-3.2 MeV C-n(+)(n = 1...10) clusters leads to large erosion coefficients. The nuclear stopping component in these experiments is typically less than 5% of the total, and all observed effects are presumably due to the large electronic stopping energy density deposition upon cluster break-up. The sputtering yield can reach two hundred molecules per carbon cluster, i.e. two orders of magnitude higher than those obtained with single ion irradiations at the same energy per atom. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.