METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR NEUTRAL BEAM PROCESSING BASED ON GAS CLUSTER ION BEAM TECHNOLOGY Russian patent published in 2016 - IPC H05H1/00 

FIELD: physics.

SUBSTANCE: invention relates to treating materials with a neutral beam. A method of treating the surface of a workpiece comprises steps of providing a reduced pressure chamber; forming a gas cluster ion beam comprising gas cluster ions within the reduced pressure chamber; accelerating the gas cluster ions to form an accelerated gas cluster ion beam along the beam path within the reduced pressure chamber; promoting the fragmentation and/or dissociation of at least a portion of the accelerated gas cluster ions along the beam path by expanding the range of ion velocities in the accelerated gas cluster ion beam; removing charged particles from the beam path to form an accelerated neutral beam along the beam path in the reduced pressure chamber; holding the workpiece on the beam path; treating at least a portion of the surface of the workpiece by irradiating with the accelerated neutral beam.

EFFECT: forming highly pure gas cluster neutral beams for treating components.

40 cl, 21 dwg, 1 tbl