ANGULAR DISTRIBUTION OF Ag ATOMS SPUTTERED WITH A 5 keV Ar + ION BEAM.

A polycrystalline, high-purity Ag target was sputtered with a normally incident, 5 kev Ar** plus ion beam under ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) conditions. Sputtered material was collected on a cylindrically shaped Al foil and subsequently analyzed in an Auger electron spectrometer. The obtained results show that sputtering under UHV conditions leads to a cosine-like distribution. The distribution taken after prolonged ion bombardment contained a hump at angles of 30-45 degree superimposed on the general form which we ascribe to an ion beam-induced texturing effect. The results are compared with recent investigations of other authors. The influence of the surface conditions of both the target and the foil used for collection of the sputtered material on the angular distribution measurements has also been investigated.