A study of the electronic excitation of he from grazing incidence ion-surface interaction

The neutralization of He⁺ at grazing incidence from a Ni(111) surface leads to excited states. The light emission from the 3d ³ D and 3d ¹ D states is studied as a function of the beam energy and angular parameters. The observed circular polarization dependence on the crystallographic surface directions is interpreted in terms of the Brillouin zone of the solid.