Charge exchange, the neutralization of ions by electron capture as the ions traverse matter, is a well-known phenomenon of atomic physics which is relevant to ion microscopy. In conventional transmission ion microscopes, the neutral component of the beam after it emerges from the specimen cannot be focused. The scanning transmission ion microscope (STIM) enables the detection of this signal to make images. Experiments with a low-resolution 55 kV STIM indicate that the charge-exchange signal provides a new contrast mechanism to detect extremely small amounts of matter. In an early version of charge-exchange detection (fig. 1), a permanent magnet installed between the specimen and the detector (a channel electron multiplier) sweeps the charged beam component away from the detector and allows only the neutrals to reach it. When the magnet is removed, both charged and neutral particles reach the detector.
Symmetries of the Schrödinger–Pauli equation for neutral particles
