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Toward quantitative low-energy ion scattering on CaSiO3 from comparison to multiple-scattering-resolved dynamical binary collision approximation simulations

Johannes Brötzner1, Matthias Kogler1,2, Paul S. Szabo3, Lukas Kalchgruber1,2, Andreas Nenning4, Andreas Mutzke5, Hans Hofsäss6, Markus Valtiner1,2, and Richard A. Wilhelm1,*

  • *Contact author: wilhelm@iap.tuwien.ac.at
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Phys. Rev. B 113, 075405 – Published 3 February, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/3ks5-1c83

Abstract

We perform Low-energy Ion Scattering with He ions ranging in energy from 1 keV to 3 keV on CaSiO3 using a commercial electrostatic detector system and determine the charge fraction of scattered ions from comparison with binary collision approximation simulations. The simulations take composition changes due to surface cleaning Xe sputtering into account. Scattered He particles are separated in the simulation into single, dual, and multiple scattering trajectories. We find that the charge fraction of single and dual scattered He is about ten times higher than the one for multiple collisions. Our results show that the charge fraction of scattered He can be reliably extracted for different scattering regimes and that for a given He incidence energy, the entire scattered He spectrum can be modeled with only few constant parameters.

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Phys. Rev. B 113, 075405– Published 3 February, 2026
  • Received 20 November 2023
  • Revised 11 December 2025
  • Accepted 5 January 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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