Stable transmission of slow highly charged ions through tapered glass capillary with active discharging method for sub-micron sized beams

Stable transmission of a sub-μm-sized Ar8+ beam of 64–104-keV energy through glass tandem optics was achieved. The optics consisted of a 4-electrode tapered capillary and a sub-μm-sized tapered capillary tip, arranged in series. To actively discharge the capillary, and thus obtain stable transmission, an electrode was applied with a mechanical relay closing at a 0.01–0.1 Hz frequency. Transmitted beams were observed for tip outlets' diameters of 0.75 and 2.0 μm. When only a 4-electrode capillary was used, a beam density enhancement with a multiplicity of 14 times of the input beam density was achieved. A transmission efficiency up to 70% was observed with good reproducibility when the electrodes were biased with appropriate voltages.