Trajectory-dependent electronic excitations at keV ion energies


Trajectory-dependent electronic excitations at keV ion energies

Lohmann, S.; Holeňák, R.; Primetzhofer, D.

We present experiments directly demonstrating the significance of charge-state dynamics in close collisions at ion velocities below the Bohr velocity resulting in a drastic trajectory dependence of the specific energy loss.
Experiments were performed with the time-of-flight medium energy ion scattering set-up at Uppsala University [1]. In our 3D-transmission approach [2], pulsed beams of singly charged ions are transmitted through self-supporting Si(100) nanomembranes and detected behind the sample. We record ion energy together with the angular distributions of deflected particles and can additionally insert a deflector to measure exit charge states [3].
We specifically studied the difference in energy loss between channelled (ΔEch) and random trajectories (ΔEr) for ions with masses ranging from 1 (protons) to 40 u (Ar+) as shown in Fig. 1 [4,5]. For protons, the observed effect can be explained with increasing contributions of core-electron excitations in close collisions only attainable in random geometry. For He and heavier ions we observe a reverse trend – a decrease of the ratio ΔEch/ ΔEr with decreasing ion velocity. Due to the inefficiency of core-electron excitations at these velocities, we explain this behaviour by contributions of collision-induced charge-exchange events along random trajectories. The resulting higher mean charge state leads to higher electronic stopping along random trajectories. For heavier ions, local losses due to electron promotion, also including several electrons, are expected to contribute strongly to the energy deposition in random geometry. By studying the trajectory dependence of the statistical distribution of electronic excitations (electronic energy straggling), we present evidence that for heavier ions, individual events with large energy transfer indeed significantly contribute to the energy loss. Finally, we show that our experimental approach leads to results that can serve to benchmark dynamic theories such as time-dependent density functional theory [5].

References
[1] M. A. Sortica et al., Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. B 463 (2020) 16-20.
[2] R. Holeňák, S. Lohmann and D. Primetzhofer, Ultramicroscopy 217 (2020) 113051.
[3] R. Holeňák et al., Vacuum 185 (2021) 109988.
[4] S. Lohmann and D. Primetzhofer, Phys. Rev. Lett. 124 (2020) 096601.
[5] S. Lohmann, R. Holeňák and D. Primetzhofer, Phys. Rev. A 102 (2020) 062803.

  • Invited lecture (Conferences) (Online presentation)
    25th International Conference on Ion Beam Analysis & 17th International Conference on Particle Induce X-ray Emission & International Conference on Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry, 11.-15.10.2021, Online, Online

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Publ.-Id: 34019