A quadratic potential time-of-flight mass spectrometer for use with slow positron ionization sources and other large-volume ion sources

A time-of-flight spectrometer has been specially designed for measuring the masses of ions produced by low-energy positrons interacting with organic molecules in a Penning trap. To make the flight times insensitive to the starting positions of the ions in the trap, acceleration was done using a potential that varied as the square of the distance of the ion from the detector. The containment of the positrons in the Penning trap for extended time periods effected very long collision paths between the positrons and the molecules. The entire length of the Penning trap source could be sampled. These features produced high sensitivity, enabling the measurement of ionization processes with small cross sections. The spectrometer is useful for mass spectrometry of ions produced by processes other than positron interaction. Both large and small volume sources can be accommodated