Electron-stimulated desorption of positive lithium ions from thin layers of lithium halides deposited onto Si(1 1 1) are investigated by the time of-flight technique. The determined values of isotope effect of the lithium (Li-6(+)/Li-7(+)) are 1.60 +/- 0.04, 1.466 +/- 0.007, 1.282 +/- 0.004, 1.36 +/- 0.01 and 1.33 +/- 0.01 for LiH, LiF, LiCl, LiBr and LiI, respectively. The observed most probable kinetic energies of Li-7(+) are 1.0, 1.9, 1.1, 0.9 and 0.9 eV for LiH, LiF, LiCl, LiBr and LiI, respectively, and seem to be independent of the halide component mass. The values of lithium ion emission yield, lithium kinetic energy and lithium isotope effect suggest that the lattice relaxation is only important in the lithium ion desorption process from the LiH system. In view of possible mechanisms and processes involved into lithium ion desorption the obtained results indicate that for LiH, LiCl, LiBr and LiI the ions desorb in a rather classical way. However, for LiF, ion desorption has a more quantum character and the modified wave packet squeezing model has to be taken into account. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.