Electronic energy loss of light ions in nanometer films of materials with large band gaps has been studied for very low velocities. For LiF, a threshold velocity is observed at 0.1 a.u. (250 eV/u), below which the ions move without transferring energy to the electronic system. For KCl, a lower (extrapolated) threshold velocity is found, identical for H and He ions. For SiO2, no clear velocity threshold is observed for He particles. For protons and deuterons, electronic stopping is found to perfectly fulfill velocity scaling, as expected for binary ion-electron interaction.

The electronic energy loss of hydrogen ions (protons and deuterons) in thin supported films of LiF has been studied in backscattering geometry for specific energies from 700 eV/u to 700 keV/u, using Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy and time-of-flight low-energy ion scattering spectroscopy. For specific energies below 8 keV/u, our data confirm velocity proportionality for the stopping cross section epsilon (like in a metal) down to 3.8 keV/u, as observed previously for protons and antiprotons despite the large band gap (14 eV) of LiF. Below 3.8 keV/u, the present results indicate an apparent velocity threshold at about 0.1 a.u. for the onset of electronic stopping.

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Investigating possible crystal effects in ion scattering from elemental surfaces, measurements of the positive ion fraction P+ are reported for He+ ions scattered from single and polycrystalline Cu surfaces. In the Auger neutralization regime, the ion yield is determined by scattering from the outermost atomic layer. For Cu(110) P+ exceeds that for polycrystalline Cu by up to a factor of 2.5, thus exhibiting a strong crystal effect. It is much less pronounced at higher energies, i.e., in the reionization regime. However, there a completely different angular dependence of the ion yield is observed for poly- and single crystals, due to massive subsurface contributions in nonchanneling directions.