Molecular dynamics simulations have been used to model the kiloelectronvolt particle bombardment of organic layers on metal substrates such as occurs in the analytical techniques of secondary ion mass spectrometry and fast atom bombardment mass spectrometry. Vignettes of insights gained from the simulations along with comparisons to experimental data are presented in this Account. Topics includ...

Carbon nanotubes (CNT) have shown to posses most remarkable electronic and mechanical properties [1,2]. It is very interesting to study the effects produced on these properties after ion bombardment. Although a few works are related to the theoretical studies of ion irradiation on nanotubes [3,4], little progress has been reported on experimental results [5,6]. In fact, only the effect of Argon...

We have investigated by means of atomic force microscopy (AFM) single impacts of slow singly and multiply charged Ar ions on atomically clean insulator surfaces for LiF(1 0 0), SiO2(0 0 0 1) a-quartz, muscovite mica and sapphire c-plane Al2O3(0 0 0 1) crystals. The target samples have been continuously kept under UHV conditions by transferring them in a transportable UHV vault from the vacuum c...

We demonstrate mechanical modulation of phonon-assisted field emission in a free-standing silicon nanomembrane detector for time-of-flight mass spectrometry of proteins. The impacts of ion bombardment on the silicon nanomembrane have been explored in both mechanical and electrical points of view. Locally elevated lattice temperature in the silicon nanomembrane, resulting from the transduction o...

We have investigated magnetoresistance properties of (100) epitaxial, (111) textured and polycrystalline spin valve heterostructures on (100) Si substrates by UHV ion beam sputtering at room temperature. Magnetoresistance was measured as a function of Cu interlayer thickness (tl) with 10 A 5 tl 5; 100 A and the maximum was found at 20 A in the case of (100) epitaxial spin valves. Highly (1 11) ...

A research program has been established to study ion beam enhanced grain growth (IBEGG). Ion beam enhanced grain growth has been studied experimentally in Ge, Au and Si films. IBEGG has been characterized by varying the ion dose, ion energy, ion flux, ion species, temperature, and thin film deposition onrditions. The effect of these parameters on grain size and microstructure has Leen analyzed ...