Storing ions for collision studies

AUG 01, 1974

Overcoming the limitations of plasma and colliding‐beam techniques, the new static trap helps untangle the mechanisms by which positive ions recombine with electrons.

DOI: 10.1063/1.3128803

Fred L. Walls

Gordon H. Dunn

A static trap capable of storing ions for many hours—electrons for over a month—bids fair to bring the convenience of the chemist’s reagent shelf to the study of ions and their interactions. The trap to store heavy ions developed at the Joint Institute of Laboratory Astrophysics, shown on the cover and in figure 1, is preferable for our work to its older cousin, the radiofrequency trap, in that it does not feed energy into the system it contains. Its usefulness is further enhanced by a nondestructive detection technique. Thus ends the era when our knowledge of ions and their interactions depended exclusively on analysis of plasmas, laboratory and natural, or the cleaner method of colliding beams.

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More about the authors

Fred L. Walls, Time and Frequency Division, National Bureau of Standards.

Gordon H. Dunn, Physics and Astrophysics Department, University of Colorado.