Interaction of Slow Highly Charged Ions with Ultrathin Membranes - Potential Sputtering, Energy Loss and Charge Exchange

Slow highly charged ions (HCI) are known as an efficient tool for sur- face nano structuring of various insulating and semi-conducting sur- faces. We show here that slow HCI can also be used to perforate a free-standing carbon nano membrane (CNM) with a thickness of only 1 nm. Round pores with sizes of up to 15 nm in diameter and corre- sponding sputter yields of up to a few thousand atoms are observed. Recent energy loss and charge exchange measurements on ions trans- mitted through a 1 nm thick CNM and free-standing Graphene reveal a strong dependence of the ion energy loss on charge exchange. Sur- prisingly, two distinct exit charge state distributions are observed, i.e. one part of the ions is almost neutralized and the other part remains in very high charge states after transmission. The ions potential and kinetic energy dependence on pore formation is discussed in terms of charge exchange and energy loss.