Enhanced emission of secondary ions from solid surfaces bombarded with MeV polyatomic ions

MeV sputtering from CsI and organic samples induced by the polyatomic ions C-n(+) (n = 1-12), Ag-n(+) (n = 1-7), and Au-n(+) (n = 1-5) has been investigated. It is found that the desorption yield Y-n increases more than linearly with increasing number n of projectile constituents. In case of the C-n(+) induced desorption from a CsI sample it could be shown that the nonlinear increase of Y-n reflects a linear increase of the energy density produced by the cluster projectile. This is a collective effect resulting from the simultaneous action of all it constituents of the polyatomic ion. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.