AN INTENSE ATOMIC-HYDROGEN SOURCE WITH A MOVABLE NOZZLE OUTPUT

The fabrication and operation of a stable and intense source of atomic hydrogen from an easily movable nozzle is described in detail. The so urce uses a well-known air-cooled, extended cavity microwave source us ing molecular hydrogen, but conducts the dissociated atoms to the expe rimental interaction region via inert Teflon ''spaghetti'' tubing. A r esulting collimated beam with a dissociation fraction exceeding 0.8 an d with an average number density of atomic hydrogen of 6 x 10(12) cm(- 3) at a distance of 2 mm from the exit of the source is obtained. This source of H is attractive, because it is movable and easily interface d into beam-beam type experiments. (C) 1998 American Institute of Phys ics. [S0034-6748(98)02609-4]