Investigation of the effect of nitrogen ion irradiation on the lithium surface condition

Abstract

A comparison of the surface of solid lithium in the atomically pure state, after contact with oxygen, nitrogen and after irradiation with N+ ions with an energy of 0.6 keV at a current density of 2 μA/mm2 was carried out. The analysis of surface characteristics was carried out using electron Auger spectroscopy. To obtain an atomically pure surface, low-energy electron bombardment was used. It is shown that the contact of an atomically pure Li surface with oxygen leads to the formation of lithium oxide, and with nitrogen with a partial pressure of 10-6 Pa, lithium oxide and oxynitride in a mixture with free lithium atoms. Irradiation of lithium with nitrogen ions leads to the formation of the surface compound Li3N. It is noted that the resulting compound is unstable in ultrahigh vacuum and eventually decays to form lithium oxide due to interaction with the residual oxygen of the spectrometer chamber. Keywords: lithium, vacuum, ions, electrons, surface.