Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Detection of sputtered metastable atoms by autoionization

Journal Article · · Physical Review A
; ;  [1];  [2]
  1. Universitaet Kaiserslautern, Fachbereich Physik, Erwin-Schroedinger Strasse, D-67663 Kaiserslautern (Germany)
  2. Surface and Microanalysis Science Division, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899 (United States)

We report on a scheme for the detection of sputter-generated metastable atoms that is based on the resonant excitation of an autoionizing state by single-photon absorption from a tunable laser. Using this technique, sputtered silver atoms ejected in the metastable 4{ital d}{sup 9}5{ital s}{sup 2}{ital D}{sub 5/2} state with an excitation energy of 3.75 eV have been detected. This represents the highest excitation energy of sputtered metastable atoms observed so far.

OSTI ID:
144774
Journal Information:
Physical Review A, Journal Name: Physical Review A Journal Issue: 3 Vol. 49; ISSN 1050-2947; ISSN PLRAAN
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

Similar Records

Metastable excitation of sputtered silver atoms
Journal Article · Tue Jan 14 23:00:00 EST 1997 · AIP Conference Proceedings · OSTI ID:21165662

Coherent excitation of cadmium J =0,1,2 autoionizing levels by electron impact
Journal Article · Thu Feb 28 23:00:00 EST 1991 · Physical Review, A; (USA) · OSTI ID:6045771

Formation of metastable excited states during sputtering of transition metals
Journal Article · Tue Dec 31 23:00:00 EST 1996 · Physical Review, B: Condensed Matter · OSTI ID:439041