HIGH-TEMPERATURE METAL ATOM BEAM SOURCES

This paper presents a survey of the factors governing the performance and operation of high temperature subsupersonic metal atom beam sources. After an initial statement of the requirements placed on such sources a section is presented which considers the factors determining atomic beam intensities and profiles. The section which considers the materials used in source construction discusses the choice of crucible material, and in so doing presents a table of the most suitable materials, hazard assessments, and other information for all those elements which can be vaporized. Two further parts of this section are devoted to resistive heater materials and ceramics. The review of the sources is divided between resistively heated sources, sources heated by electron bombardment, and inductively heated sources. Finally there is a section which briefly discusses the monitoring of source performance. (C) 1995 American Institute of Physics.