Visible Light Emission from Slow Highly Charged Ions Transmitted Through a Ni Microcapillary

Abstract

Interaction of slow highly charged ions (HCI) with a thin microcapillary foil was studied for the first time through measurements of visible light emitted from the ions downstream of the foil. The microcapillary was employed so that ions which capture electrons in high Rydberg states may not violently collide with the surface in spite of the image acceleration. The wavelength range measured was from 300 nm to 600 nm. Some strong lines were found attributable to Δn = 1 transitions resulting from a single electron capture into states with ni ~ Q and with a large angular momentum.