Flight tube

After ions have been formed by El, they are examined for mass and abundance by the analyzer part of the mass spectrometer, which can incorporate magnetic sectors, electric sectors, qua-drupoles, time-of-flight tubes, and so on. The region in which the ions are first formed is called... 

This small section of the beam contains a representative selection of the ions in the original ion beam, but now the ions have all been started off down the TOF flight tube at the same instant (the... 

A fuller description of the microchannel plate is presented in Chapter 30. Briefly, ions traveling down the flight tube of a TOF instrument are separated in time. As each m/z collection of ions arrives at the collector, it may be spread over a small area of space (Figure 27.3). Therefore, so as not to lose ions, rather than have a single-point ion collector, the collector is composed of an array of miniature electron multipliers (microchannels), which are all connected to one electrified plate, so, no matter where an ion of any one m/z value hits the front of the array, its arrival is recorded. The microchannel plate collector could be crudely compared to a satellite TV dish receiver in that radio waves of the same frequency but spread over an area are all collected and recorded at the same time of course, the multichannel plate records the arrival of ions not radio waves. 

If, just before the ion beam reaches the ion detector, a pusher electrode is used alongside it to deflect the beam at right angles (orthogonal) to its original direction into the flight tube of a time-of-flight sector (TOP analyzer), the m/z values can be measured by the TOP section. 

The reflectron increases the spatial separation of the ions of different m/z values by making them travel up and down the flight tube, so the distance traveled is twice what it would be if the ions simply passed once along the tube from one end to the other. The reflectron also narrows the energy spread for individual m/z values, thus improving mass resolution. TOP analyzers are not necessarily equipped with a reflectron. 

In TOP mass spectrometry, ions of different m/z values are detected as a function of their velocities along a flight tube (see Chapters 20 through 23). 

The pulsed ions start their journeys down the TOF flight tube all at the same time they separate in the TOF analyzer according to their velocities and arrive at the TOF ion collector at different times (temporally separated). 

In time-of-flight (TOF) mass spectrometers, a pulse of ions is accelerated electrically at zero time. Having attained a maximum velocity, the ions drift along the flight tube of the analyzer. The times of arrival of ions at a detector are noted. 

Henglein (23) has constructed a machine for studying stripping reactions which does not fall into any of the above categories. It consists of an ion gun followed by a flight tube which also serves as a reaction chamber. A velocity selector scans the ions which have suffered little or no change in direction, and energy analysis of the secondary ion beam is used to deduce cross-sections and reaction mechanisms in chosen simple cases. 

The resolution of the ToF analyser is dependent upon the ability to measure the very small differences in time required for ions of a similar m/z to reach the detector. Increasing the distance that the ions travel between source and detector, i.e. increasing the length of the flight tube, would accentuate any such small time-differences. The implication of such an increase is that the instrument would be physically larger and this goes against the current trend towards the miniaturization of all analytical equipment. 

Time-of-flight mass analyser A mass analyser in which ions are separated in time as they drift through a field-free flight tube. 

Figure 4-8. Basic components of a simple mass spectrometer. A mixture of molecules is vaporized in an ionized state in the sample chambers.These molecules are then accelerated down the flight tube by an electrical potential applied to accelerator grid A. An adjustable electromagnet, E, applies a magnetic field that deflects the flight of the individual ions until they strike the detector, D.The greater the mass of the ion, the higher the magnetic field required to focus it onto the detector.

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