Muon beams are classified into three types based on the energy of the muons being produced: high-energy, surface or "Arizona", and ultra-slow muon beams.
High-energy muon beams are formed by the pions escaping the production target at high energies. They are collected over a certain solid angle by quadrupole magnets and directed onto a decay section consisting of a long superconducting solenoid with a field of several tesla. If the pion momentum is not too high, a large fraction of the pions will have decayed before they reach the end of the solenoid. In the laboratory frame the polarization of a high-energy muon beam is limited to about 80% and its energy is of the order of ~40-50MeV. Although such a high energy beam requires the use of suitable moderators and samples with sufficient thickness, it guarantees a homogeneous implantation of the muons in the sample volume. Such beams are also used to study specimens inside of recipients, e.g. samples inside pressure cells. Such muon beams are available at PSI, TRIUMF, J-PARC and [https://web.archive.org/web/20110624051656/http://riken.nd.rl.ac.uk/ral.html RIKEN-RAL].
The second type of muon beam is often called the surface or Arizona beam (recalling the pioneering work of Pifer et al. from the University of Arizona). In these beams, muons arise from pions decaying at rest inside but near the surface of the production target. Such muons are 100% polarized, ideally monochromatic, and have a very low momentum of 29.8 MeV/c (corresponding to a kinetic energy of 4.1 MeV). They have a range width in matter of the order of 180 mg/cm. The paramount advantage of this type of beam is the ability to use relatively thin samples. Beams of this type are available at PSI (Swiss Muon Source SµS), TRIUMF, J-PARC, ISIS Neutron and Muon Source and RIKEN-RAL.
Positive muon beams of even lower energy (ultra-slow muons with energy down to the eV-keV range) can be obtained by further reducing the energy of an Arizona beam by utilizing the energy-loss characteristics of large band gap solid moderators. This technique was pioneered by researchers at the TRIUMF cyclotron facility in Vancouver, B.C., Canada. It was christened with the acronym μSOL (muon separator on-line) and initially employed LiF as the moderating solid. The same 1986 paper also reported the observation of negative muonium ions (i.e., Mu or μ e e) in vacuum. In 1987, the slow μ production rate was increased 100-fold using thin-film rare-gas solid moderators, producing a usable flux of low-energy positive muons. This production technique was subsequently adopted by PSI for their low-energy positive muon beam facility. The tunable energy range of such muon beams corresponds to implantation depths in solids of less than a nanometer up to several hundred nanometers. Therefore, the study of magnetic properties as a function of the distance from the surface of the sample is possible. At the present time, PSI is the only facility where such a low-energy muon beam is available on a regular basis. Technical developments have been also conducted at RIKEN-RAL, but with a strongly reduced low-energy muon rate. J-PARC is projecting the development of a high-intensity low-energy muon beam.