Sputtering of Lunar Regolith Simulant by Protons and Multicharged Heavy Ions at Solar Wind Energies

Conference · Sat Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 2011

OSTI ID:1018254

Meyer, Fred W ^[1]; Harris, Peter R ^[1]; Taylor, C. N. ^[2]; Meyer, III, Harry M ^[1]; Barghouty, N. ^[3]

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1. ORNL
2. Purdue University
3. NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL

We report preliminary results on sputtering of a lunar regolith simulant at room temperature by singly and multiply charged solar wind ions using quadrupole and time-of-flight (TOF) mass spectrometry approaches. Sputtering of the lunar regolith by solar-wind heavy ions may be an important particle source that contributes to the composition of the lunar exosphere, and is a possible mechanism for lunar surface ageing and compositional modification. The measurements were performed in order to assess the relative sputtering efficiency of protons, which are the dominant constituent of the solar wind, and less abundant heavier multicharged solar wind constituents, which have higher physical sputtering yields than same-velocity protons, and whose sputtering yields may be further enhanced due to potential sputtering. Two different target preparation approaches using JSC-1A AGGL lunar regolith simulant are described and compared using SEM and XPS surface analysis.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)
• Sponsoring Organization: ORNL LDRD Seed-Money; SC USDOE - Office of Science (SC)
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 1018254
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS
EFFICIENCY
EXOSPHERE
HEAVY IONS
MASS SPECTROSCOPY
PARTICLE SOURCES
PROTONS
QUADRUPOLES
SOLAR WIND
SPUTTERING
TARGETS
X-RAY PHOTOELECTRON SPECTROSCOPY