Early stage of the electron kinetics in swift heavy ion tracks in dielectrics

Abstract : A Monte Carlo approach was applied for simulations of the early stage (first tens of femtosecond) of kinetics of the electronic subsystem of silica (SiO2) in tracks of swift heavy ions (SHIs) decelerated in the electronic stopping regime. At the first step multiple ionizations of target atoms by a projectile (Ca+19, E=11.4 MeV/amu) were described that gave the initial spatial distributions of free electrons having different momenta as well as distributions of holes in different atomic shells. Spatial propagation of fast electrons results in secondary ionizations of target atoms as well as in energy transfer to the lattice at times much shorter than the times of atomic oscillations (phonons). The well detected front of excitation in the electronic and ionic subsystems is formed due to this propagation which cannot be described by models based on diffusion mechanisms (e.g., parabolic equations of heat diffusion). At times ∼10 fs after the projectile passage, about ∼0.1% of the energy is already transferred to the lattice. About 63% of the energy deposited by the ion is accumulated in holes at these times. Calculated distributions of these holes through the atomic shells are in excellent agreement with the spectroscopy experiments. Comparison with these experiments demonstrated also that relaxation of the electronic subsystem in SHI tracks in solids cannot be described adequately without taking into account intra-atomic and interatomic Auger (Knotek-Feibelman) processes.