Computer simulation of cascade developments in amorphous targets

Atomic collisions in amorphous targets have been simulated based on the binary collision approximation. The collision cascades in copper bombarded with 100 KeV argon ions are shown to be composed of subcascades and to be spread out over a large volume. On the contrary, the collision cascades in gold bombarded with 100 KeV gold ions are very dense, and energy dissipated within a small volume. For the gold selfsputtering the computer calculations give reasonable results at low incident energies, but the simulated yields show much smaller values than the experimental yields below the maximum in the nuclear stopping power. Comparison of cascades of 100 KeV ions with those of 10 KeV ions leads to the conclusion that this discrepancy will be mainly due to the non-linear effects brought out by overlap of dense cascades.