Slow highly charged ion transmission through carbon nanomembranes and graphene

Slow highly charged ions (HCI) showed in many studies their efficiency in formation of surface nanostructures especially on insulating surfaces [1]. Here we report on transmission of HCI through carbon foils with a thickness of only 1nm and below (graphene). At these thicknesses the neutralization of the slow HCI is not completed in the solid and thus effects of pre-charge-equilibrium stopping of slow ions can be addressed experimentally.
We find that transmitted highly charged Xe ions with charge states between Q=10 and Q=30 show a bimodal charge state distribution, i.e. one part of the ions is transmitted in low exit charge states combined with a large charge exchange enhanced kinetic stopping. The other part of the ions, however, shows only a very small charge exchange with almost no kinetic energy loss [2]. Both charge exchange regimes are attributed to different impact parameter regimes, i.e. close collision lead to extremely large charge exchanges and distant collisions are connected with weak ion-target interactions. Thus, our measurements reveal that sub-surface neutralization of HCI proceeds in a step-like fashion, i.e. either the ion approaches a target atom closely and correspondingly neutralizes almost completely (∆Q > 20 for Q = 30) or it passes through the material almost unchanged (∆Q < 5) until it hits a target atom at some larger depth. A bimodal charge state distribution could therefore not be observed for larger target thicknesses [3], except for the inverse case of a swift heavy ion charging up during transmission through a silicon single crystal under random vs. channeling direction [4]. Gas phase experiments on the other hand cannot lead to slow HCI neutralization in one single scattering event using light target atoms (e.g. carbon), because here only atomically bound electrons can contribute to the neutralization process (6 electrons in case of carbon) rather than de-localized electrons in a solid target.