Optimal operation of a 4-element injection lens in a hemispherical spectrograph: FDM/BEM simulation and experimental demonstration

We have investigated the voltage settings for the 4-element injection lens of a biased paracentric hemispherical deflection analyzer (HDA) with virtual entry aperture using numerical methods. The two lens electrode voltages were varied as free parameters while the electron optical properties of the analyzer were calculated from trajectories with test initial distributions for different pre-retardation factors in an effort to obtain improved energy resolution. The resulting lens voltages were then also tested on the existing HDA spectrometer at the Tandem Accelerator Laboratory, while simulated and measured line profile characteristics were compared, particularly at the best resolution working points.