he SII sensors are of CPA heritage; they are using a unique particle focusing scheme developed at the University of Calgary. Ions enter a narrow aperture slit and are then deflected by a pair of hemispherical grids that create a region having electric fields directed radially inward. Incoming low-energy positive ions are accelerated toward the center of the spherical system, whereas ions with larger kinetic energies travel farther toward the edge of the detector, creating an energy spectrum as a function of detector radius (Figure 36).
Particles arriving from out of the plane of Figure 36 land at different azimuths on the image plane. The resulting image from each SII sensor is a 2D cut through the ion distribution function, from which one can calculate ion density, drift velocity (2D), temperature, and higher-order moments. The two SII sensor head assemblies are oriented such that the aperture slits are oriented perpendicularly to each other, enabling 3D characterization of the ion distribution.