Interaction of Low-Energy Ions, Atoms and Molecules with Surfaces

Abstract

The study of the interaction of swift particles with matter dates back to the first years of this century. The literature of those days is decorated with many Nobel prize winners, like Curie, Bohr, Stark, Rutherford. World War I ended the first era of particle-solid interaction for reasons nobody cared to think about so far. The early work was inspired by the detection of radioactivity, the α and ß rays, and by the experiments made possible by the detection of the “Kanalstrahlen” by Goldstein [1]. Even though the Kanalstrahlen are based on a long history of gas discharge experiments, there was no connection made between the sputtering effect observed much earlier (Grove [2]) and the observation of the energy loss of swift particles in matter.