Sputtering at grazing ion incidence: Influence of adatom islands

When energetic ions impinge at grazing incidence onto an atomically flat terrace, they will not sputter. However, when adatom islands (containing N atoms) are deposited on the surface, they induce sputtering. We investigate this effect for the specific case of 83 deg. -incident 5 keV Ar ions on a Pt (111) surface by means of molecular-dynamics simulation and experiment. We find that - for constant coverage {Theta} - the sputter yield has a maximum at island sizes of N congruent with 10-20. A detailed picture explaining the decline of the sputter yield toward larger and smaller island sizes is worked out. Our simulation results are compared with dedicated sputtering experiments, in which a coverage of {Theta}=0.09 of Pt adatoms are deposited onto the Pt (111) surface and form islands with a broad distribution around a most probable size of N congruent with 20.