A new compact 60 kV Mott polarimeter for spin polarized electron spectroscopy

A compact 60 kV Mott polarimeter has been constructed, tested, and calibrated especially for the local analysis of surface and two-dimension magnetism by means of electron spectroscopy with spin resolution. The use of construction combining spherical accelerating field with the absence of retarding potential after electron scattering provides low sensitivity of the polarimeter to movements of the analyzed electron beam and changes in its diameter. Special silicon surface-barrier detectors with large electron-optical acceptance provide efficiency epsilon(equivalent to S-eff(2) x I/I-0) about approximate to 2.5 x 10(-4). The unique fast electronics allow to work with maximum count rate of detected electrons up to 5 x 10(6) counts/s. As a result, there is the possibility to calibrate the polarimeter (to calculate the effective Sherman function S-eff) by extrapolation of the measured asymmetry to the high level of discrimination. This instrument is compact, fully UHV compatible and may be used in other fields of solid state physics, atomic physics, and physics of high energies. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.