Oxygen-dependent photon emission from Ne+- bombarded Mg

Abstract

The optical spectrum observed when solid Mg is bombarded with 10 keV Ne⁺ ions consists of strong spectral lines from Mg and Mg\ together with weaker lines from Ne, Ne⁺, O⁺, H and Al. Molecular emission, attributed to MgO and MgH, is also observed, though with much lower intensity. Some spectral lines are enhanced by oxygen at or in the target surface, others are unaffected by oxygen, while (a new feature in this work) some decrease in intensity due to oxygen. This article only reports on the experimental results. Interpretation of these results in terms of existing models will be given in a subsequent article.