Influence of water contamination on the sputtering of silicon with low energy argon ions investigated by Molecular Dynamics simulations

Focused ion beams (FIB) are a common tool in nanotechnology for surface analysis, sample preparation for electron microscopy and atom probe tomography, surface patterning, nanolithography, nanomachining and nanoprinting. For many of these applications, a precise control of the ion-beam induced processes is essential. The effect of contaminations on these processes has not been explored thoroughly but can often be substantial, especially for ultralow impact energies in the sub-keV range. In this paper we investigate by molecular dynamics (MD) simulations how one of the most