Effects of gold nanoclusters under He ion irradiation: a molecular dynamics study

Ion channeling is a well-known effect in ion irradiation processes, which is a result of ion moving between the rows of atoms. It drastically affects the ion distribution, ion energy-loss and consequently the damage production in the target. Therefore one could derive the ion-channeling pattern out of the energy-loss behavior of ion-target interaction.
Ion channeling effect is studied for a few pure element crystals and also for some compounds in a systematic way [1]. In this work, we focus on nano-structures which are of major importance, due to their high surface-to-volume ratio. Our results, for different gold cluster sizes, show that ion-channeling occurs not only in the principal low-index, but also in other directions in between. The strengths of different channels are specified, and their correlations with sputtering-yield and damage production is discussed.