Temperature dependence of polar-angle distributions of atoms ejected from ion-bombarded Au(111)\

Molecular dynamics simulations incorporating the effect of temperature on the crystal lattice reproduce temperature-dependent changes in the ejection yield observed in experimentally obtained angular distributions of species ejected from the Au(111)\ surface. This effect has been only observed on fcc(111)\ surfaces and is preferentially active along the [110] direction. The underlying microscopic process responsible for the observed temperature-dependent change in the angular spectra is shown to be related to the number of direct ejection events occurring along close-packed crystallographic directions. Approximately 90% of the observed decrease in the yield along the [110] direction, with increased target temperature, results predominately from surface quenching with some minor contribution from subsurface misalignment of direct ejection sequence chains. The observations for Au(111)\ are generalized to predict the temperature dependence of the ejection yield for atoms ejected from low index metal single crystals.