SIMULTANEOUS INORGANIC MASS SPECTROMETER AND METHOD OF INORGANIC MASS SPECTROMETRY
An inorganic mass spectrometer capable of measuring a relevant and large or the full mass spectral range simultaneously may include a suitable ion source (e.g., an ICP mass spectrometer with an ICP ion source), an ion transfer region, an ion optics to separate ions out of a plasma beam, a Mattauch Herzog type mass spectrometer with a set of charged particle beam optics to condition the ion beam before the entrance slit, and a solid state multi channel detector substantially separated from ground potential and separated from the potential of the magnet is introduced.
1 . A mass spectrometer, comprising:
an ion source,
a vacuum interface including a skimmer unit and an extractor unit,
a Mattauch-Herzog style mass spectrometer, and
a multichannel monolithic semiconductor detector.
2 . The mass spectrometer according to claim 1 , further comprising an electrostatic sector field pre-filter configured to achieve carrier gas ion/analyte ion separation.
3 . The mass spectrometer according to claim 1 , wherein the ion source is an inductively coupled plasma (ICP) ion source substantially near ground potential.
4 . The mass spectrometer according to claim 1 , further comprising two or more pumping ports located symmetrically in a vacuum interface for inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS).
5 . The mass spectrometer according to claim 1 , wherein the skimmer and extractor units are configured to be removed as a single unit, and without disconnecting an electrical connection to an extractor lens unit.
6 . The mass spectrometer according to claim 1 , wherein the mass spectrometer is configured to use an ion-molecule or -atom chemistry in a collision or reaction cell to achieve carrier gas or interferent ion/analyte ion separation.
7 . The mass spectrometer according to claim 1 , wherein the Mattauch-Herzog style mass spectrometer is mounted onto an optical bench.
8 . The mass spectrometer according to claim 7 , wherein the Mattauch-Herzog style mass spectrometer comprises a permanent magnet.
9 . The mass spectrometer according to claim 1 , wherein the multichannel monolithic semiconductor detector comprises charge collection areas, amplifiers, multiplexers and signal conditioning electronics.
10 . The mass spectrometer according to claim 1 , wherein the multichannel monolithic semiconductor detector is configured to have two different gains and/or two different sizes of charge collecting areas.
11 . The mass spectrometer according to claim 1 , wherein the multichannel monolithic semiconductor detector is separated from the magnet by a conductive electrically isolated and electrically floatable mask.
12 . The mass spectrometer according to claim 11 , wherein the mask is configured to be at a potential of the detector or at a potential of the magnet.
13 . The mass spectrometer according to claim 1 , further comprising:
floatable read-out electronics; and
a data acquisition system,
wherein the floatable read-out electronics is configured to communicate with the data acquisition system via an optical data link.
14 . The mass spectrometer according to claim 1 , further comprising one or more thermoelectric detector cooling elements.
15 . The mass spectrometer according to claim 13 , wherein a galvanic separation of the detector is provided via ceramic of the one or more thermoelectric detector cooling elements.
16 . The mass spectrometer according to claim 1 , further comprising a contactless temperature sensor arranged to measure the temperature of the multichannel monolithic semiconductor detector.
17 . The mass spectrometer according to claim 1 , wherein the multichannel monolithic semiconductor detector is removably mounted to an optical bench.
18 . The mass spectrometer according to claim 1 , wherein the mass spectrometer is configured to be capable of measuring the full inorganic mass range from Li 6 to U 238 simultaneously in less than four measurements.
19 . A method of mass spectrometry, comprising:
using the mass spectrometer according to claim 1 to perform mass spectrometry on a substance; and
outputting results of the mass spectrometry to a data acquisition system.
20 . The method of claim 19 , further comprising displaying results of the mass spectrometry via a user interface.