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Ion optics of the mass spectrometer ion source

University of British Columbia

The ion beam transmission efficiency of the ion source is an important factor in determining the sensitivity of a mass spectrometer. Vauthier (1955) has shown for a simple source that the transmission efficiency is very low. The present thesis examines the transmission efficiency of a more complex source. The first part of the thesis deals with the ion optical properties of a multiple slit ion source. The region of ion withdrawal has been sketched by computing the ion trajectories passing through the exit slit. It was found that for the more complex source the region of ion withdrawal is also much smaller than the total ionization space. It is not practical to confine the ionization region to the small volume from which ions are withdrawn. The effect of a source magnetic field has been taken into account. The perturbation of the trajectory due to the field is small, and therefore the mass discrimination due to the source magnetic field is imperceptible for heavy ions unless the field is of the order of a few webers/m². The multiple slit ion source produces a divergent ion beam, only a small fraction of which penetrates the exit slit. Obviously a system producing a beam converging at the exit slit to a narrow parallel ribbon will be most efficient. In order to devise such a system a theory of the inverse problem of particle motion is developed in the second part of the thesis. A procedure was found to determine a potential distribution required to guide a group of particles along a set of prescribed paths. There are two important limitations to the choice of paths: (a) there are certain paths which are not complete; that is a particle following such a path is turned back at certain points which we call mirror points. (b) The particles which do not satisfy the initial conditions of uniform energy and direction may deviate considerably from their projected paths leading to what we have called an unstable situation. Fortunately the complete paths are stable, and the incomplete paths are unstable. Of the two types of convergent paths studied, namely, exponentially decreasing and damped oscillatory paths, the system of damped oscillatory paths is stable.

Text

2011-09-21

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/37530

Geophysics

University of British Columbia

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