摘要 |
Beams of energetic atoms are produced by furnishing a beam of energetic ionized clusters and disintegrating the clusters to produce a beam of energetic atoms. The energetic ionized clusters are provided by forming a beam containing uncharged particles, both clusters and atoms, ionized the particles, accelerating the particles, separating any unionized particles from the beam, and removing those particles outside a selected size range from the beam. The resulting energetic beam of ionized clusters is impacted against a cluster scattering plate so that the clusters break apart into unclustered atoms and ions. The ions are removed from the beam of unclustered atoms, which is available for use as needed. The atoms have energies dependent upon the cluster beam conditioning, but which are typically in the range of 1-10 electron volts per atom.
|