Nano-technology with highly charged ions

Nano-technology with highly charged ions Institute for Laser Science Professor Shunsuke OHTANI ohtani@ils.uec.ac.jp http://yebisu.ils.uec.ac.jp/
		Left: Interaction of an HCI with a solid surface. The huge potential energy of a HCI induces nano-scale modification on a surface.
Highly charged ions (HCIs) have potential energy as huge as several tens to several hundreds keV while its size is smaller than atomic size. Thus HCIs can induce dramatic changes in the physical properties in a nano-scale area of the surface.
Right: STM (scanning tunneling microscope) image of highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) irradiated with Xe⁴⁴⁺ ions. Each protrusion was produced with single ion impact.
Our goal is to produce a new device such as photonic crystals by arranging HCI-induced nano-structure into arrays. In Institute for Laser Science, pioneering work with one of the world's highest performance HCI source, the Tokyo EBIT, has been being performed.