Compact ion accelerator source
AssigneeThe Regents of the University of California
InventorsThomas Schenkel, Arun Persaud, Rehan Kapadia, Ali Javey
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Abstract
An ion source includes a conductive substrate, the substrate including a plurality of conductive nanostructures with free-standing tips formed on the substrate. A conductive catalytic coating is formed on the nanostructures and substrate for dissociation of a molecular species into an atomic species, the molecular species being brought in contact with the catalytic coating. A target electrode placed apart from the substrate, the target electrode being biased relative to the substrate with a first bias voltage to ionize the atomic species in proximity to the free-standing tips and attract the ionized atomic species from the substrate in the direction of the target electrode.
Claims7
An ion source comprising:
- a conductive substrate;
- a plurality of conductive nanostructures with free-standing tips, the plurality of conductive nanostructures being disposed on the conductive substrate;
- a catalytic coating disposed on the plurality of conductive nanostructures and the conductive substrate, the catalytic coating configured to dissociate a molecular species into an atomic species;
- and
- a target electrode positioned apart from the conductive substrate, the target electrode configured to be biased relative to the conductive substrate with a first bias voltage to ionize the atomic species proximate the free-standing tips of the plurality of conductive nanostructures and to attract ionized atomic species from the conductive substrate in the direction of the target electrode.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.