During the JetClean process a small amount of hydrogen is introduced into the ion source’s ion volume while the filament is emitting electrons: reactive hydrogen species are created. Each time this process runs, contamination is removed from the ion source depending on the conditions and the nature of the contamination. Consequently:
However, over time, in spite of the JetClean process, less reactive contaminants may build up on the ion source optics, and the source will then have to be manually cleaned. By careful application of the process and use of the parameters for JetClean, this manual process can become much less frequent.