The fate of mass selected silver clusters deposited on Pd(100)

We present a new experiment to monitor ionized atom and mass selected cluster depositions in real time using specular reflected thermal helium scattering. Monomer Ag ions with an incident kinetic energy of E/sub dep/=20 eV and E/sub dep/=95 eV create surface defects on Pd(100) which affect the surface morphology even at 400 K surface temperature. The defect production is the dominant process responsible for the reflectivity decay at low surface temperatures. Kr/sup +/ ions deposited under identical conditions confirm this. Silver clusters (Ag/sub 7/) with an incident energy of 2.85 and of 13.5 eV/atom become severely fragmented upon impact, the remaining "cluster-like" features being implanted fragments, whose size increases with incident energy.