Abstract
We investigate the formation of ionic and neutral clusters emitted from a polycrystalline indium surface under bombardment with SFm+ (m=1,…,5) and Ar+ projectile ions at 10 keV impact energy. Mass spectra of secondary ions and sputtered neutral particles are recorded under otherwise identical conditions. The neutral species are post-ionized prior to mass analysis by means of single photon-ionization using an intense UV laser at a wavelength of 193 nm. It is found that the measured secondary ion signals increase much more than those of the corresponding neutral particles if SFm+ projectiles are used instead of Ar+ ions, indicating that the ionization probability under bombardment with SFm+ is enhanced by a chemical matrix effect induced by fluorine incorporation into the surface. Interestingly, the largest values of the ionization probability are observed for SF3+ projectiles. The total sputtering yield is found to be larger for SFm+ compared to Ar+ projectiles and to increase linearly with increasing m. Both findings are shown to be understandable in the framework of linear cascade sputtering theory. The partial sputtering yields of Inn clusters exhibit a stronger enhancement than the sputtered monomers, the magnitude of the effect increasing with increasing cluster size and projectile nuclearity.