Sputtering from a porous material by penetrating ions

Abstract

Porous materials are ubiquitous in the universe and weathering of porous surfaces plays an important role in the evolution of planetary and interstellar materials. Sputtering of porous solids in particular can influence atmosphere formation, surface reflectivity, and the production of the ambient gas around materials in space. Several previous studies and models have shown a large reduction in the sputtering of a porous solid compared to the sputtering of the non-porous solid. Using molecular dynamics simulations we study the sputtering of a nanoporous solid with 55% of the solid density. We calculate the electronic sputtering induced by a fast, penetrating ion, using a thermal spike representation of the deposited energy. We find that sputtering for this porous solid is, surprisingly, the same as that for a full-density solid, even though the sticking coefficient is high.

Description
Keywords
Atomic processes, Methods: numerical, Molecular processes, Planets and, Satellites: surfaces, Radiation mechanisms: general, Molecular dynamics, Dust grains, Cosmic-rays, Regolith
Citation
J. F. Rodriguez-Nieva et al. 2011. "sputtering from a porous material by penetrating ions," ApJ 743 L5 doi:10.1088/2041-8205/743/1/L5