Electron impact desorption of hydrogen on tungsten: I. Pure hydrogen lasers

The electron impact induced desorption of H⁺ ions from hydrogen layers on thermally annealed polycrystalline tungsten ribbons has been investigated mass spectrometrically. In agreement with Benninghoven et al. (1972) and Madey (1973) the more strongly bound β₂-state has been found to have a higher EID cross section than the more weakly bound β₁-state. Ionic and total desorption cross sections have been measured at 100 eV; the obtained values agree with the lower values published to data, which suggests that the much higher values reported by some authors do not apply to pure hydrogen layers. The contributions of the different states have also been investigated using partial coverage with deuterium. The implications of the findings for the understanding of the adsorption states of hydrogen on tungsten and for the mechanism of EID are discussed.