A Simplistic Analytical Model for Hydrogen Surface Coverage Under the Influence of Various Surface-Related Processes and Ion Bombardment

Abstract

The paper describes a simple analytical model that allows the calculation of hydrogen surface coverage under the influence of several processes that can co-occur during the ion-beam bombardment/sputter analysis of a sample surface, in particular during analysis by secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS). The model considers processes of dissociative adsorption, desorption, absorption from the surface into the sample volume, and removal by ion bombardment. After describing the model, we provide some examples of its practical applications for interpretation of the experimental results obtained during in situ SIMS studies of hydrogen interaction with the hydrogen-storage alloys TiFe, Zr2Fe, and with nickel. In the examples, some quantitative characteristics of surface-related processes involving hydrogen, such as hydrogen sputtering rate, activation energy of hydrogen desorption and absorption, have been successfully determined using various model approaches.

Keywords

• secondary ion mass spectrometry
• hydrogen storage
• sputtering
• adsorption
• desorption
• ion bombardment
• kinetics