The operational characteristics and technical details of a high-intensity discharge source for a pulsed beam with a high flux of helium atoms in their metastable states (exceeding 4×1015 atoms sr-1 s-1) are discussed. Owing to the high ionization potential of helium, stable operation of a pulsed discharge in an atomic beam is difficult to achieve. In this work we describe a simple, robust and easy-to-operate design of a reliable high-intensity pulsed source for metastable helium atoms. The principle of operation relies on injection seeding the discharge with electrons emitted from a hot wire, permitting a strong enhancement both in efficiency and instability of the production of metastable atoms.
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Halfmann et al. (2000) studied this question.
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