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Review of Scientific Instruments

An orthotropic source of thermal atoms

Timothy P. Dinneen, Albert Ghiorso, Harvey Gould

Published Mar 1, 1996• 24 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A source of thermal atoms that emits 100% of its atoms into a narrow beam with small angular divergence is described. It uses both surface ionization and surface neutralization in conjunction with electric fields to selectively emit a highly directional (orthotropic) beam of neutral atoms. The source can be modulated electronically and lends itself to scanning. This orthotropic source is ideal for the efficient use of rare atomic species, is well suited for atomic clocks, is essential for the efficient delivery of radioactive atoms to optical traps, and has the potential to produce ultrahigh intensity beams of stable atoms.

DOI
10.1063/1.1146804

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A source of thermal atoms that emits 100% of its atoms into a narrow beam with small angular divergence is described. It uses both surface ionization and surface neutralization in conjunction with electric fields to selectively emit a highly directional (orthotropic) beam of neutral atoms. The source can be modulated electronically and lends itself to scanning. This orthotropic source is ideal for the efficient use of rare atomic species, is well suited for atomic clocks, is essential for the efficient delivery of radioactive atoms to optical traps, and has the potential to produce ultrahigh intensity beams of stable atoms.
The authors describe a novel oven to obtain concentrated beams of radioactive atoms. The Orthotropic oven works by ionizing atoms on its interior walls and electrostatically concentrating them on a neutralizer. Once neutralized the atoms can escape from the oven and form a narrow beam. Atoms that fail to escape become ionized again and repeat the cycle. The authors demonstrate the operation of this oven using {sup 221}Fr and compare both the theoretical and experimental efficiency of this source with standard effusive and channeled ovens.
We have developed a unique neutralizer device that uses an yttrium target surrounded by a platinum wall to magneto-optically trap radioactive atoms. In general, the radioactive nucleus produced in a nuclear reaction is extracted and transported in ion form. For the magneto-optical trap, thermal neutralization must occur on the surface of a metal with a small work function. The converter can produce a neutral atomic beam with small angular divergence that, given the recycling of atoms and ions, converts ions into neutral atoms with remarkable efficiency. We demonstrated the ion neutralization process using stable rubidium and confirmed 10610^6106 neutralized atoms in the magneto-optical trap. Additionally, the experiment using francium demonstrated the obtaining of neutralized francium atoms.
We report a programmable multiple ion beam system developed by combing a magneto-optical trap ion source with a spatial light modulator (SLM). Neutral rubidium atoms are trapped into a magneto-optical trap and cooled to 700 μK. An excitation laser beam, the intensity distribution of which is shaped into a square array by the SLM, selectively excites the cold atoms, which are subsequently ionized by an ionization laser beam. The ions are then extracted by an electric field to produce multiple ion beams. A 3×3 ion beam array has been generated. The size of each beams is 180 μm, and the transversal reduced emittance of multiple ion beams at the source is evaluated to be 1.65 × 10−9 m radeV. We also demonstrate the generation of ion bunches with a user-defined spatial pattern. In the future, by integrating this programmable multiple ion beam system with high reduction ion optics, it is possible to generate nanoscale multiple focused ion beams for the potential applications in maskless patterning and direct writing lithography.