The stability of Mott polarization analyzers

The stability of Mott conventional spherically symmetric and retarding-potential conical polarimeters are compared for the case when the position of the electron beam at their inputs is changed. The primary electron energies are 500 and 1600 eV. When the electron beam is shifted by 0.6 mm, the count rate of the former polarimeter remains unchanged, while for the latter, it changes by ≈7 and ≈18% for the energies 1600 and 500 eV, respectively. This instability may cause errors in measuring the degree of polarization of the electron beam.