Negative Hydrogen and Deuterium Ion Beams

Abstract

The charge state of a monoenergetic beam of hydrogen atomic and molecular ions traversing a hydrogen gas target has been measured as a function of the energy of the beam and the thickness of the gas target. The yield of negative ions from protons has a maximum of 1.5% at 13 kev. From diatomic and triatomic molecular ions the maximum yields were 3.0% and 4.5% at 26 and 39 kev, respectively. The experiments have also been performed with deuterium ions traversing the hydrogen gas target. The deuterium results are almost identical with those of hydrogen if the energy scale for the hydrogen data is multiplied by two.