Development of Ultraslow, Monochromatic, and Mass-selected Ion Source Toward Measurement of Hydrogen Ion Permeability of Graphene

Abstract

Graphene is a perfect impermeable membrane for gases but permeable to hydrogen ions. Hydrogen ion permeation shows the isotope effect, i.e., deuteron is slower than proton when permeating graphene. However, the permeation mechanism and the origin of the isotope effect are still unclear. Here, we propose a strategy to discuss the hydrogen ion permeation mechanism of graphene by developing an ion source with ultraslow, monochromatic, and mass-selected hydrogen ion beam. We employed a hemispherical monochromator and a Wien filter for the ion source to achieve the energy and mass resolutions of 0.39 eV and 1 atomic mass unit, respectively. The energetically sharp ion beam is expected to allow us to directly measure the permeability of graphene with high accuracy.