D⁺, He⁺ and H⁺ sputtering of solid and liquid phase tin

Absolute sputtering yields of Sn in the solid and liquid phases for incident H⁺, D⁺, and He⁺ ions with energies of 300 to 1000 eV were determined via a series of experiments using the ion-surface interaction experiment (IIAX), a facility designed to measure such ion-surface interactions. IIAX incorporates an ion source with an array of ion beam filters and optics to bring a near mono-energetic beam of ions to the target, in this case at 45° to the surface normal. A pair of quartz crystal microbalances record the amount of mass collected from both sputtering and evaporation from the target. VFTRIM-3D modeling results of tin sputtering best fit the experimental data when the bulk of pure tin was modeled with 60% SnO coverage in the top three monolayers most likely indicating the presence of a very thin oxide layer during experimentation.