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 $2\times 10^{12}$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.

References in corpus (6)

• Bose-Einstein Condensation of Metastable Helium
• Cold and trapped metastable noble gases
• Laser Probing of Neutron-Rich Nuclei in Light Atoms
• A novel vacuum ultra violet lamp for metastable rare gas experiments
• Efficient magneto-optical trapping of a metastable helium gas
• Magneto-optical trapping of bosonic and fermionic neon isotopes and their mixtures: isotope shift of the ^3P_2 to ^3D_3 transition and hyperfine constants of the ^3D_3 state of Ne-21

Cited by in corpus (8)

• The Soreq Applied Research Accelerator Facility (SARAF) - Overview, Research Programs and Future Plans
• Isotope shifts in ${}^{20,22}$Ne -- Precision measurements and global analysis in the framework of intermediate coupling
• Weak interaction studies at SARAF
• A decay microscope for trapped neon isotopes
• Imaging recoil ions from optical collisions between ultracold, metastable neon isotopes
• Bichromatic force on metastable Argon for Atom Trap Trace Analysis
• Measurement of the ${}^{20-22}$Ne ${}^3$P${}_2$-${}^3$D${}_3$ transition isotope shift using a single, phase modulated laser beam
• ${}^{23}$Ne Production at SARAF-I