SuperESCA beamline description

The SuperESCA end-station is represented in the figure. It basically consists of two Ultra High Vacumm (UHV) chambers separated by a gate valve.
 

Preparation chamber

The top, smaller chamber is designed for sample preparation. A VG sputter gun (ion beam energy 0.1÷3 keV) and a gas line allow for standard cleaning procedures. The chamber is also equipped with a plasma source for, e.g., sample functionalization. Moreover, a number of CF ports is availble for the installation of evaporation systems, giving the possibility to prepare samples as thin-films or supported nanoparticles.
The valve between the chambers allows venting the top chamber without breaking the vacuum in the bottom one. In this way, the time required for changing the manipulator as well as fitting the instrumentation needed for each particular experiment is strongly reduced.

Main chamber

The bottom chamber is made of μ-metal for optimum shielding, avoiding in this way the influence of magnetic fields that could distort the experimental results. It is equipped with a 150 mm hemispherical electron energy analyser with variable entrance slit, and a delay line detector developed at Elettra.
A Low Energy Electron Diffraction (LEED) system, monochromatized electron gun, gas inlet system and mass spectrometer are also available.