Laser ablation opens a material-independent method to produce ions from transition metals for laser spectroscopy. To overcome some drawbacks of this process, an ion source is under development at TU Darmstadt. A distinctive feature of this source is that ions are produced via laser ablation in presence of helium buffer gas where they stop and cool in the process of their collisions with the buffer gas atoms and are then extracted by the gas flow into low-pressure conditions through the supersonic nozzle. The compact RF-only funnel ion guide placed on the axis behind the nozzle exit allows for effective extraction of highquality ion beams into a pressure region below 10 −4 mbar. The extraction is realized by using the gas flow trough a supersonic nozzle and an RF-only funnel ion guide, followed by a second nozzle and an RF+DC funnel representing two differential pumping stages. The technical details of this laser ablation ion source are described and the results of the first tests with the RF-only funnel are presented.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.