Incident ion charge state dependence of electron emission during slow multicharged ion‐surface interactions

Characteristic variations in the total electron yield γ as a function of crystal azimuthal orientation are reported for slow N2+, N5+ and N6+ ions incident on a Au(011) single crystal, together with measurements of γ as a function of incident ion velocity. Kinetic electron emission is shown to arise predominantly in close collisions between incident ions and target atoms, and potential electron emission is found to be essentially constant within our present velocity range. The incident ion charge state is shown to play no role in kinetic electron emission. Extremely fast neutralization times of the order of 10−15 secs are needed to explain the observations.