Surface Modification on KBr (001) with Slow Highly Charged Ions

Highly Charged Ions (HCI) carry an enormous amount of potential energy (up to 100 keV for Xe50+) which is defined as the sum of the binding energies of all missing electrons. This unique parameter offers new ways of surface modifications without a significant bulk damage.
During neutralization and de-excitation processes of the HCI the potential energy is released into electronic excitations within the solid (creation of electron hole pairs). These electron hole pairs get rapidly self-trapped due to strong electron-phonon coupling in the ionic lattice and decay into color centers (mainly H, F and F*-centers).
Finally these color centers lead to a desorption of K and Br neutralized atoms at the surface site, which after a agglomeration of many of these color centers forms a pit-like nanostructure on atomically flat KBr(001) surfaces.
The influence of kinetic and potential energy effects will be discussed.