Field desorption of common gases from iridium and tungsten

The technique of field desorption has been used to study adsorption and desorption of gases from field ion tips. The formal procedure of the experiments is quite similar to thermal flash desorption. Values for the desorption field and their change with coverage have been obtained. For H₂/W a field adsorbed state could be detected. Time-of-flight analysis was applied to determine the desorbing species. The gas supply for field ion tips could be measured; it increases exponentially with the field.