Characterization of a metastable neon beam extracted from a commercial RF ion source
Abstract
We have used a commercial RF ion-source to extract a beam of metastable neon atoms. The source was easily incorporated into our existing system and was operative within a day of installation. The metastable velocity distribution, flux, flow, and efficiency were investigated for different RF powers and pressures, and an optimum was found at a flux density of atoms/s/sr. To obtain an accurate measurement of the amount of metastable atoms leaving the source, we insert a Faraday cup in the beam line and quench some of them using a weak nm laser beam. In order to determine how much of the beam was quenched before reaching our detector, we devised a simple model for the quenching transition and investigated it for different laser powers. This detection method can be easily adapted to other noble gas atoms.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1502.05376,
title = {Characterization of a metastable neon beam extracted from a commercial RF ion source},
author = {B. Ohayon and E. Wåhlin and G. Ron},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1502.05376},
year = {2015}
}