Molecule Liftoff from Surfaces

Barbara Garrison of Pennsylvania State University is supported by an award from the Theoretical and Computational Chemistry program to perform research aimed at modeling energetic particle bombardment of surfaces to address essential issues in state-of-the art experiments. The proposed research is based on molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to understand the underlying mechanisms involved in depth profiling.

This research has relevance to a broad range of important technologies and manufacturing processes including surface cleaning, surface smoothing, implantation of dopants in semiconductors, focused ion beam milling for integrated circuit repair, reactive ion etching, and the analytical technique of secondary ion mass spectrometry SIMS, including extremely high resolution three-dimensional imaging. Additionally, it is relevant to natural processes such as the erosion of the moons of Saturn.