A miniaturised electron ionisation time-of-flight mass spectrometer that uses a unique helium ion removal pulsing technique specifically for gas analysis.

A miniaturised reflectron time-of-flight mass spectrometer combined with an electron ionisation ion source has been developed for the analysis of gases. An entirely new helium ion removal pulsing technique in this mass spectrometer is used to achieve an improved performance for the first time. The helium carrier gas, which enters into the source along with the gaseous sample, is simultaneously ionised and then orthogonally introduced into the time-of-fight mass analyser. Once the relatively light helium ions in the ion packet become extremely close to the reflectron plate (B-plate for short in this article), a modulated pulse is instantaneously applied on the B-plate and a negative reflectron voltage is set to the B-plate and lasts for a very short period, during which all the helium ions are directly bumped into the B-plate and subsequently removed. The helium ion removal pulsing technique can efficiently avoid saturation of the micro-channel plate caused by too many helium ions. A compact and durable instrument is designed, which has a mass resolving resolution greater than 400 FWHM for online gas analysis. The technology may also be further developed to remove other ions for TOF mass spectrometry.