SHIM 2015 Swift Heavy Ions in Matter

In the relatively shielded environments provided by interstellar dense clouds in our Galaxy, infrared astronomical observations have early revealed the presence of low temperature (10-100 K) ice mantles covering tiny grain “cores” composed of more refractory material. These ices are of specific interest because they constitute an interface between a solid phase under complex evolution...

We report on a new time-of-flight (TOF) spectrometer designed to investigate sputtering phenomena induced by swift heavy ions in the electronic stopping regime. In this experiment, particular emphasis is put on the detection of secondary ions along with their emitted neutral counterparts in order to examine the ionization efficiency of the sputtered material. For the detection of neutral...

Amorphous silicon nitride films (thickness 30 nm) deposited on Si(001) were irradiated with 30 – 1080 keV C₆₀ and 100 MeV Xe ions to fluences ranging from 2.5 × 10¹¹ to 1 × 10¹⁴ ions/cm². The composition depth profiles of the irradiated samples were measured using high-resolution Rutherford backscattering spectrometry. Both silicon and nitrogen...

Complex organic molecules are observed in many astrophysical objects, but little is known about their formation mechanism and survivability. In molecular clouds, atoms and molecules condense on dust particles leading to formation of icy mantles. Astrophysical ices contain mainly H2O, while CO, CO2, NH3, and CH3OH are also commonly observed. These ices are exposed to energetic processing by...