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We have investigated the yields and emission velocity distributions of neutral In atoms and In 2 dimers sputtered from a pure indium surface under bombardment with Au m − ͑m =1,2,3͒ projectile ions. It is shown that 5-keV Au 1 bombardment leads to results in full compliance with linear cascade sputtering theory. All polyatomic projectiles are found to generate an additional low-energy contribution to the sputtered flux, which increases with increasing projectile nuclearity and energy and completely dominates the spectra under 10-keV Au 3 bombardment. Analysis shows that this contribution cannot be explained in terms of thermal spike sputtering models. Instead, the results indicate a spike emission mechanism, which closely resembles a free expansion of a supercritically heated subsurface volume.

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