Charge exchange of medium energy H and He ions emerging from clean solid surfaces is studied extensively using a toroidal electrostatic analyzer with an excellent energy resolution. The charge distributions of He ions scattered from sub-monolayers near a surface are non-equilibrated, resulting in a surface peak even for poly-crystal solids. By solving simultaneous rate equations numerically, we derive electron capture and loss cross sections for Ni and Au surfaces. Based on a free electron gas model, non-equilibrated He(+) fractions dependent on emerging angle reveals uniform electronic surfaces for metals and corrugated surfaces for Si and graphite with covalent bonds. It is also found that equilibrium charge fractions of H(+) are independent of surface materials (Z(2)) and in contrast equilibrium He(+) fractions depend pronouncedly on Z(2). The data obtained are compared with semi-empirical formulas. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.