ABSTRACT
There is a large number of atoms and molecules that generally need higher temperatures for evaporation than those of the alkali metals and their salts. Usually elements that are chemically similar have related problems on evaporation, such as whether polymers are formed, whether the choice of oven materials is governed by the material’s corrosiveness and whether thermocapillary effects cause an unstable beam. Hence we order our discussion of the non-gaseous elements in the groups 2 to 16 of the periodic table and discuss compounds with their constituent element. We group the lanthanides and actinides in Sections 5.15 and 5.16, respectively. An exception is made for the various means of producing beams of refractory elements, since the extremely high temperatures needed for their evaporation to form a beam require special techniques that are the same for the entire group. They are therefore grouped together in Section 5.17. The selection and ordering approach mentioned in Section 4.1 also applies to this chapter, although this means that sometimes the same technique is described in more than one section.
