Low aberration permanent hexapole magnet for atom and molecular beam research

We present details of an 800-mm-long, 4.80 mm bore, 1.32 T pole-tip field permanent hexapole (sextupole) magnet system with exceptionally low field aberrations. The assembly was developed as an atom optical element for use in the Cambridge ${}^3\mathrm{He}$ Spin-Echo Spectrometer. Our 12 segment magnet is an improved version of the well-known Halbach design, in which we refine the pole piece shape to improve the field characteristics. Semi-analytic simulations and finite element modeling were performed to optimize the pole piece shape, in order to maximize field strength while minimizing higher order multipole aberrations. High precision machining and assembly techniques were used to construct the device and the resultant field was measured. The measured pole-tip field of 1.25 T is in good agreement with the simulations (5% error) and the measured aberrations that are at least 5 times smaller than those theoretically possible with an ideal 12 segment system using the conventional design. Finally, the application of the hexapole magnet was demonstrated in our spectrometer, as a composite magnetic lens, used to analyze the nuclear spin of surface-scattered ${}^3\mathrm{He}$ atoms from a polarized incident beam.