Positron annihilation lifetime and Doppler broadening of annihilation line techniques have been used to obtain information about the small pore structure and size of porous SiO2 thin film produced by sputtered Al-Si thin film and etched Al-Si thin film. The film is prepared by an Al/Si 75：25 at.-% （A175Si25） target with the radiofrequency （RF） power of 66 W at room temperature. A 5 wt.-% phosphoric acid solution is used to etch the Al cylinders. All the A1 cylinders dissolved in the solution after 15 h at room temperature, and the sample is subsequently rinsed in pure water. In this way, the porous SiO2 on the Si substrate is produced. From our results, the values of all lifetime components in the spectra of Al-Si thin film are less than 1 ns, but the value of one of the lifetime components in the spectra of porous SiO2 thin film is τ = 7.80 ns. With these values of lifetime, RTE （Rectangular Pore Extension） model has been used to analyze the pore size.
A high-performance positron age-momentum correlation （AMOC） spectrometer was newly developed. The counting rate is increased up to 200 cps much larger than the value 20 cps reported by other international groups. And at the same time, the time resolution still keeps at the international level of 220 ps. Furthermore, positronium （Ps） annihilation in silica aerogel was investigated by AMOC, which indicates： （1） Ps annihilation between the grains dominantly undergoes pick-off process and spin conversion from o-Ps to p-Ps; （2） Annealing below 400 ℃ changes the grain surface conditions, i. e. the desorption of hydrogen and the decrease of the defect centers concentration.
Positronium time of flight spectroscopy（Ps-TOF）is an effective technique for porous material research.It has advantages over other techniques for analyzing the porosity and pore tortuosity of materials.This paper describes a design for Ps-TOF apparatus based on the Beijing intense slow positron beam,supplying a new material characterization technique.In order to improve the time resolution and increase the count rate of the apparatus,the detector system is optimized.For 3 eV o-Ps,the time broadening is 7.66 ns and the count rate is 3 cps after correction.
