Giant yields of metal sputtering induced by gold clusters at 20 to 5,000 keV/atom

The sputtering rates of gold atoms have been measured under gold cluster bombardment. The Aun gold projectiles, with n = 1 to 5, had energies ranging from 100 keV to 10 MeV. The gold sputtering rates increase non linearly with the number of atoms in the projectiles and reach a maximum at an energy bellow the maximum of the nuclear energy loss, the larger the cluster the lower the energy of the maximum. The highest measured sputtering rates were ∼ 3,000 with Au5 projectiles at 150 keV/atom. The measured yields have been compared to the Sigmund and Claussen thermal spike theory. (authors)