Highly charged ion-induced potential electron emission from clean Au(1 1 1): Dependence on the projectile angle of incidence

Abstract

Total yields for electron emission from an atomically clean Au(111) surface bombarded by slow highly charged Arq+ (q⩽17) and Xeq+ ions (q⩽50) have been measured as a function of ion impact angle (θ=10–70°) with respect to the surface normal. For fixed ion impact velocity the electron yields which are dominated by potential electron emission increase with the inverse square root of cos(θ). We demonstrate that for given ion species the impact velocity component normal to the surface is the key parameter for potential electron emission from metal targets.