Dynamics of the sputtering of water from ice films by collisions with energetic xenon atoms.

The flow of energy from the impact site of a heavy, translationally energetic xenon atom on an ice surface leads to several non-equilibrium events. The central focus of this paper is on the collision-induced desorption (sputtering) of water molecules into the gas-phase from the ice surface. Sputtering is strongly activated with respect to xenon translational energy, and a threshold for desorption was observed. To best understand these results, we discuss our findings in the context of other sputtering studies of molecular solids. The sputtering yield is quite small; differential measurements of the energy of xenon scattered from ice surfaces show that the ice efficiently accommodates the collisional energy. These results are important as they quantitatively elucidate the dynamics of such sputtering events, with implications for energetic non-equilibrium processes at interfaces.