Primary mass spectrometer

The cross section measurements were made with an apparatus described previously (1). The instrument consists of a primary mass spectrometer (PMST in tandem with a secondary mass spectrometer (SMS). The PMS is a 1 cm radius of curvature 2500 G permanent magnet mass analyzer. The SMS is a 60° magnetic sector instrument with an 8 in. radius of curvature. The detection of product ions was made by counting ions with a 17 stage electron multiplier. The gas pressure in the reaction cell was measured with an MKS Baratron differential pressure gauge. 

Figure Bl.25.8. The principle of SIMS Primary ions with an energy between 0.5 and 10 keV cause a collisional cascade below the surface of the sample. Some of the branches end at the surface and stimulate the emission of neutrals and ions. In SIMS, the secondary ions are detected directly with a mass spectrometer.

A gun is used to direct a beam of fast-moving atoms or ions onto the liquid target (matrix). Figure 4.1 shows details of the operation of an atom gun. An inert gas is normally used for bombardment because it does not produce unwanted secondary species in the primary beam and avoids contaminating the gun and mass spectrometer. Helium, argon, and xenon have been used commonly, but the higher mass atoms are preferred for maximum yield of secondary ions. 

Instead of the fast-atom beam, a primary ion-beam gun can be used in just the same way. Generally, such an ion gun emits a stream of cesium ions (Cs ), which are cheaper to use than xenon but still have large mass (atomic masses Cs, 139 Xe, 131). Although ion guns produce no fragment ions in the primary beam, they can contaminate the mass spectrometer by deposition with continued use. 

The primary process of SiH decomposition is electron impact which produces a large number of different neutral and ionic species as shown in Table 1. The density of S1H2 and SiH neutral species produced has been found to be much larger than the density of the ions. For example, mass spectrometric data for silane discharges indicate that the density of ionic species is lower by 10 compared with the density of neutral species. Further, mass spectrometer signals of ionic species, such as SiH SiH 25 SiH", SiH", and Si2H , increase by more than two orders of magnitude as the r-f power is increased, eg, from 2 to 20 W. A rapid rise in the population of ions, with power, implicitly means an increase in electron density. 

In Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (SIMS), a solid specimen, placed in a vacuum, is bombarded with a narrow beam of ions, called primary ions, that are suffi-ciendy energedc to cause ejection (sputtering) of atoms and small clusters of atoms from the bombarded region. Some of the atoms and atomic clusters are ejected as ions, called secondary ions. The secondary ions are subsequently accelerated into a mass spectrometer, where they are separated according to their mass-to-charge ratio and counted. The relative quantities of the measured secondary ions are converted to concentrations, by comparison with standards, to reveal the composition and trace impurity content of the specimen as a function of sputtering dme (depth). 

In secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS), a beam of energetic primary ions is focused onto the surface of a solid. Some of the ions are reflected but most of the energy of the primary ions is dissipated in the surface by binary collisions that cause neutrals, excited neutrals, and ions (positive and negative) to be ejected or sputtered from the surface. The secondary ions can be analyzed by a mass spectrometer to provide information about the surface composition of the solid. 

Typical results for these three collision mechanisms are shown in Figure 3 where the relative intensities of the primary, secondary, and tertiary ions are plotted against N, the concentration of molecules in the source. In deriving these curves, the parameters used were kp = 2.0 X 10 9 cc./molecule-sec. k8 = 1.0 X 10 9 cc./molecule-sec. tp = 8.5 X 10 7 sec., (the residence time of the ion (jn/e — 33) in a field of strength 9.1 volts/cm. in the Leeds mass spectrometer). In applying this analysis to a system in which the tertiary ion reacts to form quaternary and higher order ions, ITtotal represents the sum of tertiaries, quaternaries, etc. 

General. The use of alpha particles instead of electrons as in conventional ion-molecule reaction mass spectrometers introduces a difference in primary ionization conditions which is not as great as might be supposed. Thus, the primary ion mass spectra produced by alpha particles are very similar to these produced by say 70-e.v. electrons (30). Secondary electrons produced by the alpha particles are responsible for more than 50% of the total ionization. The energies of these electrons peak in the range 20-100 e.v. so that again the primary ions will be similar to those produced by 70-e.v. electrons. 

The four-sector mass spectrometer is the ultimate in MS-MS instrumentation and consists of two high-resolution mass spectrometers in series. The strength of these instruments is in terms of their high-mass and high-resolution capabilities for both precursor-ion selection and product-ion analysis. Their cost, however, precludes their primary use for LC-MS and therefore they will not be considered any further here [12]. 

Complex peptide mixmres can now be analyzed without prior purification by tandem mass spectrometry, which employs the equivalent of two mass spectrometers linked in series. The first spectrometer separates individual peptides based upon their differences in mass. By adjusting the field strength of the first magnet, a single peptide can be directed into the second mass spectrometer, where fragments are generated and their masses determined. As the sensitivity and versatility of mass spectrometry continue to increase, it is displacing Edman sequencers for the direct analysis of protein primary strucmre. 

The kinetics study [38] utilized a Fourier transform-ion cyclotron resonance (FT-ICR) mass spectrometer to measure the pathway branching ratios. The ability to eject selected masses and the extremely high mass resolution of this technique ensured that the observed CD3CH2 was in fact a primary product of the reaction. Temporal profiles from this reaction are shown in Fig. 1. Noticeably absent from the mass spectrum are the cations C2D2H3 and... 

Such techniques imply analysis of chemical products of photolysis. Application of mass-spectrometers of various types is often hampered by a number of circumstances. These difficulties will be discussed later on. The EPR method, which is currently the most extensively employed technique, features low sensitivity and is usually used for analysis of primary fragments of photolysis. For this purpose, the radicals produced are frozen on the walls of a quartz pin and are thus accumulated inside the device. On one hand, this approach allows one to overcome the sensitivity threshold of the device. However, on the other hand, this excludes the possibility of direct kinetic measurements. The SS technique permits the use of weak light sources for detecting active particles under... 

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