Production of highly charged ions for ion-surface interaction studies

We give an overview of the production of highly charged ions in the room-temperature Dresden EBIT and its successors, the Dresden EBIS and Dresden EBIS-A, and their application in different areas. Due to their compact design they are favored for the study and use of the interaction of ions with surfaces. In particular, interaction processes with highly charged ions are of special interest due to their properties, such as the high yield of secondary particles, which open up new techniques in surface structuring and materials analysis. Single ion hits are found to create hillock-like structures on the nanoscale which is shown for a HOPG surface irradiated by argon ions. Since the ion beams that are extracted from the Dresden EBIT and EBIS devices are characterized by a small beam emittance other applications come into focus, such as in FIB technology where there is a great demand for beams of noble gases. First results of the production of a helium ion beam in the Nano-FIB at LPN/CNRS employing a Dresden EBIT are presented. Furthermore molecular fragments can be produced, shown by means of a spectrum of propane fragments, which not only are of interest in life sciences.