THE AUGER (AUTOIONIZATION) SPECTRA EXCITED BY ARGON AND NEON ION-BOMBARDMENT OF A MAGNESIUM SURFACE

The Auger (autoionization) spectra produced by bombarding a magnesium target with argon and neon ions of energy in the range 200 eV-5 keV are reported. The observed spectra of both gases contained considerable fine structure broadly similar to that observed in spectra from aluminum and silicon targets. The Mg spectra contained structure not previously reported, which could be indexed as part of a series of transitions from an excited state in Mg0 to states at and above the ground state in Mg+. The variation of the heights of the main peaks was examined as a function of incident ion energy. The graph of peak height against incidence energy showed a sharp maximum for Ar while this was not the case for either Ne or Mg. The rare gas Auger peaks increased in energy with increasing incident ion energy and the shift could be explained in terms of a simple Doppler model appropriate to the strongly forward scattered experimental conditions used here. No systematic variation in the energies of the Mg peaks was observed.