Charged particle guiding and beam splitting with auto-ponderomotive potentials on a chip

TL;DR

This paper introduces a chip-based electrostatic system that guides and splits charged particle beams using customizable ponderomotive potentials, enabling advanced control over electrons and ions across a wide energy and mass range.

Contribution

The work presents a novel planar electrode design for creating tunable ponderomotive potentials, allowing precise manipulation of charged particles on a chip, surpassing traditional Paul traps.

Findings

Successfully guided electrons and ions from 20 to 5000 eV.

Demonstrated electron beam splitting as a proof-of-concept.

Achieved simultaneous confinement of particles with different masses.

Abstract

We report guiding and manipulation of charged particle beams by means of electrostatic optics based on a principle similar to the electrodynamic Paul trap. We use hundreds of electrodes fabricated on planar substrates and supplied with static voltages to create a ponderomotive potential for charged particles in motion. Shape and strength of the potential can be locally tailored by the electrodes' layout and the applied voltages, enabling the control of charged particle beams within precisely engineered effective potentials. We demonstrate guiding of electrons and ions for a large range of energies (from 20 to 5000 eV) and masses (5E-4 to 131 atomic mass units) as well as electron beam splitting as a proof-of-concept for more complex beam manipulation. Simultaneous confinement of charged particles with different masses is possible, as well as guiding of electrons with energies in the keV regime, and the creation of highly customizable potential landscapes, which is all hard to impossible with conventional electrodynamic Paul traps.