Spontaneous nanoscale corrugation of ion-eroded SiO2:: The role of ion-irradiation-enhanced viscous flow -: art. no. 246104

Grazing incidence x-ray scattering was used to determine the temperature and ion-energy dependence of nanoscale corrugations that form on an amorphous SiO2 surface eroded by Ar+ ions. The corrugation wavelength lambda* shows a nearly linear dependence on ion energy. Between room temperature and similar to 200 degreesC, lambda* depends weakly on temperature and above similar to 200 degreesC it shows an Arrhenius-like increase. Ion-assisted viscous relaxation in a thin surface layer is shown to be the dominant smoothing process during erosion; the rate of viscous smoothing scales as (lambda*)(-4).