Abstract
We have investigated the converging behavior of argon gas cluster ion beam passed through a glass capillary. The gas cluster ions are attractive as a projectile for SIMS from the view point of minimization of the damages. The cluster ion beam of 5 keV consisting of 500∼3000 argon atoms was injected in the capillary. The inner diameters of the capillary at the inlet and outlet were 0.8 mm and 9.6∼140 μm, respectively. Ion current from the outlet of the all the capillaries were detected. We obtained the converging factor of 2∼7, which depended on the incident ion current. The kinetic energy of the incident ions was found to be reduced by 20∼30% by passing through the capillary. Contrary, the velocity of the ions was not changed. These facts suggest that the cluster becomes 20∼30% smaller in mass by passing through the capillary. As far as we know, this is the first report on the study of the converging of cluster ions by using a glass capillary.
