No abstract

No abstract

In this study, three ion-neutral collision models have been discussed and compared, including the Langevin, the hard-sphere and the mixed collision models. With the pseudo-potential approximation, analytical expressions of ion secular motions with the hard-sphere and mixed collision models have been obtained for the first time. Through numerical simulations and theoretical calculations, it is found that the mixed collision model could be used as a general description of ion-neutral collisions under different conditions. Langevin collision model is a good description of low energy collisions between small ions and neutrals, while hard-sphere collision model could be used to describe high energy collisions and/or ions with higher masses (larger physical sizes). These analytical expressions of ion motion decay profiles enable the creation of direct relationships between time-domain image currents with ion collision cross sections.

A miniaturized ion trap mass spectrometer with continuous atmospheric pressure interface was built, which could be used in conjunction with internal ionization (in-vacuum plasma ionization) and external ionization (electrospray ionization). To improve its mass range, a supplemental AC signal frequency scan mode was performed for this miniature mass spectrometer, in which the fundamental RF signal was remained constant with an amplitude as low as several hundreds volts. Experiments showed that the upper limit of the mass range can be extended to 2500 Da for the miniature mass spectrometer developed in this work, and the power consumption can be reduced by 2/5, while maintaining good balance with performance parameters such as stability, sensitivity, and resolution. Due to the improvement in mass range and significant reduction in energy consumption compared with the instrument using the traditional resonant ejection mode, the scan method developed in this work is helpful to promote the miniature design of mass spectrometers for field analysis and space exploration.

In this paper, a novel compact magnetic sector mass spectrometer has been developed and tested at the Lanzhou Institute of Physics. Its design is based on the mass separation of a 90° magnetic sector-field analyzer with a double trajectory, which has a magnetic induction of 0.7 T. The instrument can record mass range from 1 to 50 amu based on two special trajectories when the accelerating voltage of the ion source changes from 200 V to 2500 V. The dimensions of the device together with the electronic unit are approximately 220  ×  165  ×  165 mm3 (length  ×  depth  ×  height). The weight is 10.2 kg and the maximum power consumption was measured to be 20 W. The instrument successfully provided mass spectrum information on the vacuum test chamber, resolving power of about 58 at full width half maximum (FWHM), and demonstrated a sensitivity of 7.2  ×  10−5 A Pa−1. The compact magnetic sector mass spectrometer is designed for space application and can be extended to other portable analytical fields on Earth.