Ion guiding in alumina capillaries: MCP images of the transmitted ions

Transmission of a few keV impact energy Ne6+ ions through capillaries in anodic alumina membranes has been studied with different ion counting methods using an energy dispersive electrostatic spectrometer, a multichannel plate (MCP) array and sensitive current-measurement. In the present work, we focus our attention to the measurements with the MCP array. The alumina capillaries were prepared by electrochemical oxidation of aluminium foils. For the present experiments guiding of 3-6 keV Ne6+ ions has been studied in two samples with capillary diameter of about 140 nm and 260 nm and with capillary length of about 15 mu m. At these energies, the ions have been efficiently guided by the capillaries up to few degrees tilt angle. In this work, we compare the results obtained by the energy dispersive spectrometer to those studied by the MCP array. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.