DESIGN NOTE: Simple oven design for highly reactive metal beam applications

An oven design suitable for producing stable beams of highly reactive metals is reported. Its attraction is in its simplicity, low cost and versatility in molecular beam and atomic/molecular physics experiments involving highly reactive metals such as rubidium, caesium, etc. An application is described for the case of atomic caesium, where the metal is produced by the chemical reaction Ba(s)+CsCl(s) to BaCl(s)+Cs(v). One of the main advantages of the present design is the use of a thin-walled, stainless steel pipe, as crucible and heater simultaneously, which considerably simplifies its design. With respect to the experimental method, the simplicity in the loading, working and cleaning procedures compared with the use of pure metal should be noted.