Detailed study on the neutralization of fast Na+-ions in grazing collisions with an Al(111) surface

We performed detailed theoretical and experimental studies on the neutralization of Na+-ions with keV energies in grazing scattering from a clean and flat Al(111) surface. Our data are described well by model calculations based on the non-perturbative CAM method. From the analysis of our experiments we deduce the effective binding energy of the NaI 3s-level in front of the metal surface.