Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 March 2011
Bombardment of slightly rough, planar surfaces with an energetic gas-clusterion beam (GCIB) is known to result in a decrease in roughness. We reportcomparison of measured surface evolution with simulations based on a simplephenomenological model. The model consists of a continuum rate equation forthe surface height undergoing multiple cluster impacts. With suitableassumptions the main features observed in the evolution of an initiallynonplanar surface can be simulated. Qualitatively, both experiment andsimulation show that sharp features and asperities are rapidly eroded.Examples are given of initial surfaces that are either randomly rough andscratched, or very smooth with added nanoscale engineered features. Bothtypes of surfaces show smoothing in microscopy evaluations of the GCIB andin the simulations, thereby identifying impact-transient surface diffusionas the primary cluster smoothing mechanism.