Time-resolved mass and energy analysis by position-sensitive time-of-flight detection

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Abstract
We describe a new method for time-resolved mass and kinetic energy analysis of ionic or neutral species in the range of 1–150 amu and 0.5–500 eV. Time-of-flight mass spectrometry is combined with position-sensitive detection to measure energy spectra for multiple masses at burst-mode sampling rates as high as 50 kHz. The detector is a rectangular microchannel plate with a 96-element metal anode array that is read out either by fast analog-to-digital converters or by discriminators and scalers. The apparatus is configured so that the measured ion drift time varies as the square root of the mass-to-charge ratio and the displacement along the detector varies as the square root of the energy-to-charge ratio. Applications are envisioned in plasma analysis, in beam-scattering experiments, and in diagnostic measurements for spacecraft propulsion.

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