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Interaction of Xenon Rydberg Atoms with Conductive Surfaces: The Effects of Stray Fields

Dennis Neufeld

Published Jan 1, 2010• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

The ionization of xenon Rydberg atoms at metallic surfaces is examined. The data show that, when the effects of stray electric "patch" fields present on the surface are taken into account, ionization is well described by a simple over-the-barrier model. The patch fields are determined from direct measurements of the potential variations across the target surfaces using Kelvin probe force microscopy. Monte Carlo techniques are used to model the atom-surface interaction. The results confirm the important role that patch fields can play during Rydberg atom-surface interactions and suggest that such interactions can provide a sensitive probe of stray fields at surfaces. To demonstrate this, measurements of the threshold conditions required to observe ions resulting from surface ionization are used to estimate how large such stray fields can be. The data show that the stray fields can be sizable, as large as ∼ 10 3 V · cm -1 100 nm from the surface and ∼ 10 V · cm -1 500 nm from the surface, and illustrate the potential of Rydberg atoms for detecting and characterizing surface electric fields. Methods to enhance the surface ionization signal using electrode arrays patterned on a surface are investigated. Simulations show that bias voltages applied to a series of parallel wires comprised of two interleaved comb-shaped electrodes can have a dramatic impact on ion collection efficiency. It is suggested that such a surface can be used to efficiently collect low- n Rydberg atoms ( n [Special characters omitted.] 10). Significant progress towards fabrication of a functioning surface of 1 μm wide wires with 1 μm spacing is documented.

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The ionization of xenon Rydberg atoms at metallic surfaces is examined. The data show that, when the effects of stray electric "patch" fields present on the surface are taken into account, ionization is well described by a simple over-the-barrier model. The patch fields are determined from direct measurements of the potential variations across the target surfaces using Kelvin probe force microscopy. Monte Carlo techniques are used to model the atom-surface interaction. The results confirm the important role that patch fields can play during Rydberg atom-surface interactions and suggest that such interactions can provide a sensitive probe of stray fields at surfaces. To demonstrate this, measurements of the threshold conditions required to observe ions resulting from surface ionization are used to estimate how large such stray fields can be. The data show that the stray fields can be sizable, as large as ∼ 10 3 V · cm -1 100 nm from the surface and ∼ 10 V · cm -1 500 nm from the surface, and illustrate the potential of Rydberg atoms for detecting and characterizing surface electric fields. Methods to enhance the surface ionization signal using electrode arrays patterned on a surface are investigated. Simulations show that bias voltages applied to a series of parallel wires comprised of two interleaved comb-shaped electrodes can have a dramatic impact on ion collection efficiency. It is suggested that such a surface can be used to efficiently collect low- n Rydberg atoms ( n [Special characters omitted.] 10). Significant progress towards fabrication of a functioning surface of 1 μm wide wires with 1 μm spacing is documented.
The ionization of xenon Rydberg atoms at metallic surfaces is examined. The data show that, when the effects of stray electric ``patch'' fields present on the surface are taken into account, ionization is well described by a simple over-the-barrier model. The patch fields are determined from direct measurements of the potential variations across the target surfaces using Kelvin probe force microscopy. Monte Carlo techniques are used to model the atom-surface interaction. The results confirm the important role that patch fields can play during Rydberg atom-surface interactions and suggest that such interactions can provide a sensitive probe of stray fields at surfaces.
Lithographically patterned micrometer-scale electrode arrays are used to examine the effects of controlled surface electric fields on Rydberg-atom--surface interactions. The data show that application of modest electrode biases (\ensuremath{\sim}\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}1 V) can lead to a transition from ionization of the incident atoms by short-range tunneling to field ionization well above the target surface. The resulting ions can be efficiently detected using ion collection fields whose strengths are substantially smaller than those required for direct field ionization pointing to the application of surface ionization in the detection of low-nnn Rydberg atoms. The data are analyzed with the aid of a Monte Carlo model and further demonstrate the critical role that local surface fields can play in governing the nature of atom-surface interactions.
The behavior of Rydberg atoms near metal surfaces in the presence of an external electric field has been examined theoretically to evaluate their potential use as an experimental probe of electron tunneling processes at surfaces. These ab initio calculations reveal strong hybridization that leads to a shift and broadening of the Rydberg levels that depend sensitively on the atom-surface separation and the strength of the applied electric field. A range of external fields exists, however, for which the Rydberg atoms ionize at sufficiently large atom-surface separations that, even in the presence of image charge attraction, the resulting positive ions can escape the surface and provide an experimentally observable signal. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.
The present work has explained a long-standing discrepency between theory and experiment: the broadening of the distances at which Rydberg atoms ionize over a metallic surface. The uneven surface potential distribution on a template-stripped gold surface evaporated on mica is measured with Kelvin probe force microscopy. The stray fields generated by the surface potential are calculated. Simulation with C++ and Matlab predicts how stray fields affect the ionization of Rydberg state atoms near a gold surface. The predicted survival probabilities for different n levels and different incident angles provided by the simulations are then compared with experiments, which shows surprisingly good agreement. Although metallic surfaces are approximately ideal equipotentials in the macroscopic world, Rydberg atoms demonstrate the important role stray fields play in the microscopic world.
The behavior of Rydberg atoms near metal surfaces in the presence of an external electric field has been examined theoretically to evaluate their potential use as an experimental probe of electron tunneling processes at surfaces. These ab initio calculations reveal strong hybridization that leads to a shift and broadening of the Rydberg levels that depend sensitively on the atom-surface separation and the strength of the applied electric field. A range of external fields exists, however, for which the Rydberg atoms ionize at sufficiently large atom-surface separations that, even in the presence of image charge attraction, the resulting positive ions can escape the surface and provide an experimentally observable signal. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.
This thesis reports the first controlled study of the interactions of Rydberg atoms with a metal surface. In these experiments, a collimated beam of potassium Rydberg atoms is directed at a plane surface at near grazing incidence. Positive ions formed by surface ionization are attracted to the surface by their image charge, which is counterbalanced by an external electric field applied perpendicular to the surface. The ions are detected by a position-sensitive detector (PSD). At some critical value of the external field, the ion trajectories just miss the surface, suggesting that analysis of the dependence of the ion signals on external electric field can be used to determine the distance from the surface at which ionization occurs. This distance, and thus the corresponding critical electric field, is expected to be n-dependent. Experimentally, however, it was observed that the ion signal had a sudden n-independent onset when only a small positive perpendicular electric field was applied at the surface. This observation requires, surprisingly, that the ions produced by surface ionization can readily escape from the surface. The data do, however, show that Rydberg atoms are efficiently ionized in collisions with the surface. This process may provide a useful new detection technique for Rydberg atoms.