Formation of metastable excited states during sputtering of transition metals

We propose a simple model which treats the formation of metastable excited neutral atoms during sputtering of a transition metal as a two step process. First, the energy deposited into the electronic system of the solid by electronic energy losses of all moving particles in the collision cascade is considered to lead to a locally altered equilibrium electronic state of the solid. It is found that this step is dominated by collective interaction with the conduction band electrons rather than by electron promotion in binary atom-atom collisions. Second, sputtered excited atoms are assumed to be formed by resonant neutralization of excited ions (reflecting the altered equilibrium state) while crossing the surface. It is shown that this model explains the total as well as the velocity dependent excitation probability observed in recent experiments on sputtered neutral silver atoms, which cannot be understood in terms of existing theories describing the formation of excited states in sputtering. copyright 1996 The American Physical Society