Formation of complex clusters in Ar/O2 gas cluster beams

Reactive cluster ion beams exhibit high sputtering yields and permit highly selective etching. Also, Ar cluster ion beams exhibit surface smoothing. Using a cluster beam formed from the mixtures of Ar and reactive gas, a high yield sputtering and effective surface smoothing can occur at the same time. In order to understand the cluster-surface interaction, the information on both cluster size distributions and the ratio of Ar/O₂ is required. In this study, O₂ cluster beams were formed with Ar gas mixture, and the cluster size distributions were measured by a time of flight (TOF) mass analyzer