The ion beam materials analysis laboratory at the environmental molecular sciences laboratory

The Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL), a Department of Energy (DOE) collaborative scientific user facility located at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), is completing an accelerator facility dedicated to ion beam modification and analysis of materials. This facility consists of a new 3.4 MV tandem accelerator from National Electrostatic Corporation (NEC), two ion sources including an Alphatross source and a SNICS sputter source, and three beam lines. One of the beam lines (+30° beam line) is dedicated to ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) materials analysis. The end station at this beam line has high-energy ion scattering capabilities including Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RBS), channeling, nuclear reaction analysis (NRA), and elastic recoil detection analysis (ERDA), as well as electron spectroscopies such as low-energy electron diffraction (LEED) and Auger electron spectroscopy (AES). This end station is interfaced with the EMSL sample transfer capability which allows a sample to be synthesized, processed, and characterized in different surface science instruments at EMSL without exposing the sample to air. A commercial high vacuum RC43 end station from NEC has capabilities for RBS, NRA, ERDA, particle induced X-ray and gamma emission (PIXE and PIGE), and is located at the end of the −15° beam line. A custom high vacuum end station is connected to the +15° beam line and is dedicated to ion implantation.