Interaction of Atomic Hydrogen with Glass

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
An omegatron ion resonance mass spectrometer has been used to study residual gases in an ultra‐high vacuum system. Atomic hydrogen, produced from molecular hydrogen by an incandescent tungsten filament, reacts with glass to produce contaminant molecules, CO, H2O, and CH4, whose presence seriously interferes with studies of surface phenomena. Such spurious effects are substantially reduced by substituting a lanthanum boride‐coated tantalum filament for the tungsten electron source of an ionization gauge used to measure pressures of hydrogen. Quantitative measurements of the binding of atomic hydrogen by glass show the existence of two distinct binding sites of nearly equal population that are occupied simultaneously at low surface coverages and low temperatures. The rate of recombination of atomic hydrogen bound to glass is proportional to the number adsorbed and is much smaller than the rate of recombination of atomic hydrogen impinging on a glass surface from the vapor phase.

This publication has 28 references indexed in Scilit: