Abstract
A mechanism for ion neutralization at metal surfaces has previously been suggested. In this mechanism the ion is neutralized upon scattering from a metal surface via the excitation of a surface plasmon. It has been shown that this mechanism is of comparable probability to the other two mechanisms, namely, the Auger and resonance tunneling neutralizations. In the previous calculations, the motion of the ions was not taken into account. This corresponds to assuming an adiabatic condition (fixed ion approximation). In the present work the ion motion is considered and the dependence of the transition rate on the incident ion energy is discussed. The effect of the motion of the ion is,taken into account by including electronic translational factors. Applying the theory of the well-studied system of a proton scattered from an aluminum surface shows that the transition rate decreases with the ion energy and, as far as the ion energy is concerned, is independent of the distance from the surface.