Positron impact ionisation phenomena

A magnetically guided beam of nearly-monoenergetic slow positrons has been used to study positron impact ionisation phenomena in gases. A novel hemispherical scattering cell incorporating an efficient ion extraction and detection system has been developed and has been utilised throughout this work. The energy spectra for the electrons ejected around 0° relative to the incident beam, following positron impact ionisation of Ar, have been measured by a time-of-flight method and a retarding electric field analyzer. The angular acceptance of the electron detection system has been estimated and used to compare the measured spectra with the double differential cross-sections calculated by Mandal et al (1986), Sil et al (1991) and Schultz and Reinhold (1990). The importance of the electron-capture-to-the-continuum process is discussed in this context and found to be minor at small forward angles, in contrast to the case of heavy positively charged projectiles. The apparatus was modified to produce a pulsed beam of slow positrons and utilised to measure in detail the total ionisation cross-section (Qt+) for a variety of atomic and molecular targets. For Ar, He and H2, Qt+ which includes contributions from Ps formation, has been subtracted from corresponding total cross-sections, in order to deduce the behaviour of the elastic scattering cross-section (Qel) in the vicinity of the Ps formation threshold (Eps). Here a small change in the gradient of Qel, has been found. The energy dependencies of the Qt+ for He, Ne and Ar, close to Eps have been interpreted in terms of threshold theory. In the case of Ar the outgoing Ps appears to be predominantly s-wave in character. For He and Ne the analysis suggests that the Ps contains significant contributions from a number of partial waves. In the case of O2, structure in Qt+ has been found, which is attributed to coupling between two inelastic channels, namely Ps formation and excitation to the Schuman-Runge continuum

Near-threshold ionization of He and H-2 by positron impact

The single ionization cross sections for He and H-2 by positron impact have been measured in the first few eV above threshold and found to exhibit a different energy dependence from the corresponding electron results. If the data, between 1 and 3 eV above threshold, are fitted by a power law, exponents of 1.99 +/- 0.19 and 1.70 +/- 0.11 are obtained for He and H-2, respectively. This agrees qualitatively with extensions of the Wannier theory in that the exponent is larger than for electron impact. The quantitative disagreement with the predicted value of 2.65 might indicate that the range of validity of this theory is smaller than expected

Vacancy Clusters at Nanoparticle Surfaces

The authors detect vacancy clusters at Au nanoparticle surfaces using a combination of positron lifetime spectroscopy, 1- detector, and 2-detector measurements of Doppler broadening of annihilation radiation. Gold nanoparticles are formed by MeV implantation of gold ions into MgO (100) followed by annealing. Clusters of two Mg and two O vacancies (v{sub 4}) are attached to the gold nanoparticle surfaces within the projected range (R{sub p})

A study on the performance of an electrostatic focusing mirror for Rydberg positronium

Recently, we demonstrated an electrostatic mirror that focuses a beam of Rydberg positronium atoms over a 6 m path to a 32 ± 1 mm FWHM diameter spot on a position sensitive detector. The mirror is comprised of 360 wires arranged in the shape of a nearly-cylindrical revolved truncated ellipse ~96 mm in radius, with potentials of equal and opposite magnitude applied to alternating wires to create a short-ranged electric field that decreases in magnitude exponentially with e-folding length = 0.53 mm. Here, we explore in detail the observed resolution and discuss the factors contributing to its broadening from the ideal point focus of a perfect embodiment of the mirror. Improvements to the design are considered, with the aim to achieve a mirror with a resolution of <0.5 mm, which is necessary for a proposed measurement of the gravitational deflection of positronium