Morphology of an oxide layer on aluminum after ion bombardment
Surface electron microscopy is used to show that bombardment by argon ions with energies lower than the Al2O3 sputtering threshold results in the accumulation of bombarding ions in interstitial hollows of the surface, leading to the formation of oversaturated solid solutions of target atoms, bombarding argon ions, and nitrogen ions captured by the ion beam from the residual gas of the working chamber of the spectrometer. It is established that this effect produces surface roughness of submicron size, the amount of which depends on the length of exposure.