José Paulo Santos

We have measured the x-ray spectra from highly charged Si, S and Cl ions in collisions with thin foils using a high-resolution x-ray spectrometer. The observed lines have been assigned to various transitions in H-, He- and Li-like ions. For proper identification of line positions, the theoretical calculations have been carried out using a state-of-the-art MCDF code including QED effects, with which the experimental data is in excellent agreement. We have also observed, for the first time, x-rays arising out of the decay of long-lived resonant states in the He-like ions of each species. Details will be presented.

Formulas for the total ionization cross section by electron impact based on the binary-encounter-dipole (BED) model and its simpler version, the binary-encounter-Bethe (BEB) model are extended to relativistic incident electron energies. Total ionization cross sections for the hydrogen and helium atoms from the new relativistic formulas are compared to experimental data. Relativistic effects double the total ionization cross section of H and He at incident electron energy 300 keV and dominate the cross section thereafter. A simple modification of the original BED-BEB formulas is proposed for applications to ion targets and inner-shell electrons of neutral atoms and molecules. The relativistic and nonrelativistic BEB cross sections are compared to the K-shell ionization cross sections by electron impact for the carbon, argon, nickel, niobium, and silver atoms. For carbon and argon, the relativistic effects are small, and both forms of the BEB cross sections agree well with available experimental data. For the nickel and heavier atoms, the relativistic increase of cross sections becomes noticeable from about 100 keV and higher in the incident electron energy. The empirical formula by Casnati et al. [J. Phys. B 15, 155 (1982)] after correcting for relativistic effects as shown by Quarles [Phys. Rev. A 13, 1278 (1976)] agrees well with the BEB cross sections for light atoms. However, the peak values of the Casnati cross sections become higher than the relativistic BEB peak cross sections as the atomic number increases. The BEB model is also applied to the total ionization cross section of the xenon atom, and the theory agrees well with experiments at low incident electron energies, but disagrees with experiment at relativistic incident energies.

Measurements of electron impact ionization of neutral Al, Ga, and In show large cross sections compared to other elements in the same rows of the periodic table. Semiempirical and classical calculations of direct ionization cross sections are all substantially smaller. Calculations by McGuire [Phys. Rev. A 26, 125 (1982)] for aluminum that include excitations to autoionizing 3s3p2 doublet levels are 2.5 times higher than experiment at the peak. We report the direct ionization cross sections based on the binary-encounter-Bethe model of Kim and Rudd [Phys. Rev. A 50, 3954 (1994)], which is an ab initio theory. We add the autoionization contribution using scaled plane-wave Born cross sections as recently developed by Kim [Phys. Rev. A 64, 032713 (2001)] for excitations to the first set of autoionizing levels. Dirac-Fock wave functions are used for the atomic structure. Our results are in excellent agreement with experimental values and support substantial contributions from excitation-autoionization to the total ionization cross sections for these elements. We also compare the total ionization cross section of boron to available theories, though no experimental data are available.

It is known that zinc alloys with iron group metals have better corrosion resistance than pure zinc. Owing to the corrosion resistance of these alloys, Zn–Fe coatings are widely used in automotive industry...