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 2 × 10 12 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 633 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.

Bichromatic force on metastable argon for atom-trap trace analysis

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Isotope shifts inNe20,22: Precision measurements and global analysis in the framework of intermediate coupling

“…Utilizing this technique a substantially shorter laser frequency scan is possible, which may be beneficial in the spectroscopy of short lived radioisotopes [22]. We plan to combine this technique with metastable quenching spectroscopy [93], for hyperfine and isotope shift measurements of various neon isotopes produced at the SARAF particle accelerator [94,95].…”

Decay microscope for trapped neon isotopes

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