Simulation of guiding of highly charged projectiles through insulating nanocapillaries

Recent experiments have demonstrated that highly charged ions are guided through insulating nanocapillaries along the direction of the capillary axis for a surprisingly wide range of injection angles. Even more surprisingly, the transmitted particles remain predominantly in their initial charge state. We present a first theoretical treatment of ion guiding. We simulate the self-organized charge-up. Both the linear and non-linear response of the insulator surface to the local field are considered and partial agreement with experiment is found.