Indigenous development of mass spectrometers : Part-I - development of magnetic sector instruments with EI And TI sources. PD-5-2

Mass spectrometry is an indispensable analytical technique for high precision isotopic ratio analysis of materials, trace and ultra trace impurity analysis and also compositional studies. Whereas magnetic sector instruments are best suited for the isotopic analysis, quadrupole based systems are routinely used for compositional analysis and ultra trace analysis. BARC has been developing these mass spectrometers for various departmental users covering the entire analytical application range. An overview of these developments has been presented elsewhere in this volume. There has been a growing demand from the users for enhanced performance of these instruments and efforts are going on at VPID, in BARC towards meeting these demands. The present paper describes the recent development of magnetic sector instruments and some results obtained on these machines. The presentation covers: (1) development of TIMS for U and Pu, (2) TIMS for Boron analysis with an optional EI source change over and (3) process gas MS for UF6 analysis and D/H machines