Development of compact ion gun under atmospheric pressure X-rays

A highly efficient and highly stable compact ion gun (less than 10 × 10 × 5 cm) operable under atmospheric pressure was developed for environmental measurements and materials technology applications. Soft X-ray ionization was used as an ion source. In this work, soft X-rays were generated from a beryllium/titanium target irradiated by 9 keV thermal electrons. For a nitrogen assist gas flow rate of 500 ml/min and an acceleration voltage of 3.9 kV, the highest average ion current was 1.34 nA and a current stability of ±6% over 10 min was obtained. A high frequency electric field was applied to the electrode in the X-ray ionization chamber in order to enhance the ion current. The ion current increased by a factor of 1.6 compared to the current in the absence of the high frequency electric field. The ion gun developed here was employed to deposit a silicon carbonitride (SiCN) film on silicon and copper substrates by using nitrogen ions and hexamethyldisilane under atmospheric pressure conditions. The deposition of a hydrogenated SiCO and SiCN mixture film was confirmed using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy.