Large electronic sputtering yield of nanodimensional Au thin films: Dominant role of thermal conductivity and electron phonon coupling factor

Abstract

Detailed experiments and theoretical calculations on electronic sputtering of Au thin films (5-200 nm) on a quartz substrate are performed, revealing unusually large electronic sputtering, dependent on the thickness of the films. The dependence of electronic thermal conductivity (κe), electron-phonon coupling factor (g), and lattice thermal conductivity (κa) on the effective electron mean free path is taken into account in the thermal spike calculation for nanodimensional systems to elucidate the combined effect of the thickness and grain size on the electronic sputtering yield. The thermal spike simulation with refined parameters for nanodimensional systems gives a better explanation of the electronic sputtering process with a very good correlation between the experimental and theoretical yields than that of the thermal spike model with bulk parameters.