Annihilation of craters: Molecular dynamic simulations on a silver surface

The ability of silver cluster ions containing 13 atoms to fill in a preexisting crater with a radius of about 28 Å on a silver (001) target has been investigated using molecular dynamics simulations and the molecular-dynamics–Monte Carlo corrected effective medium potential. The largest lateral distance r between crater and ion was about three times the radius of the preexisting crater, namely, 75 Å. The results reveal that when r<20 Å and r>60 Å the preexisting crater is partially filled in, and for other distances there is a net growth of the crater. The lattice damage created by the cluster ions, the total sputtering yield, the cluster sputtering yield, and simulated transmission electron microscopy images of the irradiated targets are also presented.