An ion guide assembly (2) is disclosed comprising: two planar mounting components (4); and first and second ion guides (6,8) mounted on the two planar mounting components such that the ion guides are spaced apart from each other, wherein at least one of the planar mounting components has an aperture (14) therethrough that is located between the positions on said at least one mounting component at which the first and second ion guides are mounted; and an ion optical device sized and configured to be inserted through the aperture in the planar mounting component and into the space between the first and second ion guides.

An efficient and stable secondary ion extraction apparatus for ion mass spectrometry has a sample target, a primary ion optical unit, a secondary ion extraction unit, an electronic gun, an ion lens and an ion deflection unit. The primary ion optical unit generates primary ions. The secondary ion extraction unit extracts secondary ions generated by the sample target. The electronic gun neutralizes charges accumulated on the surface of a sample. The ion lens focuses the secondary ions from the secondary ion extraction unit. The ion deflection unit carries out low-aberration deflection on the focused secondary ions. An extraction electrode consisting includes the surface of the sample target, a first extraction electrode and a second extraction electrode that extracts the secondary ions. When charges are accumulated on the surface of the sample target by the primary ions, the charges on the surface of the sample target are neutralized using the electronic gun.

Provided are ion detectors and systems that may employ such ion detectors such as mass spectrometers and other instruments. The ion detectors include a deflector that serves to generate an electric field with designed shape and strength that causes the ions passing into the detector to move along a deflection path. By selectively deflecting the charged ions from an initial propagation axis, the deflector effectively removes unwanted neutral particles from the ion path and reduces background in the resulting spectra.

An electrostatic lens for transporting charged particles in an axial direction includes a first group of first electrodes configured to receive a first DC potential from a DC voltage source, and a second group of second electrodes configured to receive a second DC potential from the DC voltage source different from the first DC potential. The first electrodes are interdigitated with the second electrodes. The first group and/or the second group has a geometric feature that progressively varies along the axial direction. The lens generates an axial potential profile that progressively changes along the axial direction, and thereby reduces geometrical aberrations. The lens may be part of a charged particle processing apparatus such as, for example, a mass spectrometer or an electron microscope.

A dual polarity ion detector comprises: an entrance electrode disposed to receive ions and maintained at a reference voltage, V.sub.0; a first dynode maintained at a voltage, V.sub.1, that is negative relative to V.sub.0; a second dynode maintained at a voltage, V.sub.2, that is positive relative to V.sub.0; a shielding electrode disposed between the first and second dynodes and maintained at a voltage, V.sub.3; and an ion detector comprising an entrance aperture configured to receive first secondary particles from the first dynode and second secondary particles from the second dynode, the entrance aperture maintained at a voltage, V.sub.aperture; that is intermediate between the voltage, V.sub.1, and the voltage, V.sub.2. In some instances, the voltage, V.sub.3, may be equal to or approximately equal to the voltage, V.sub.0.

The present invention relates to a reaction chamber (12) for an IMR-MS apparatus or a PTR-MS apparatus, comprising an essentially gaslight outer housing (14), comprising at least two ion lenses (16) with essentially constant orifice dimensions and/or at least two ion lenses (17) with different orifice dimensions arranged around the reaction region (20), and at least one at least partly gaslight sealing (19), characterized in that the ion lenses (16,17) are placed inside the essentially gaslight outer housing (14), wherein between at least two adjacent ion lenses (16,17) an at least partly gaslight sealing (19) is mounted, wherein the room between at least other two ion lenses (16, 17) is such to allow a gas flow through said room from the reaction region (20) into the outer space (21). The present invention further relates to a method to operate an apparatus according to the invention.

An ion beam lens and methods for combining ion beams are disclosed. Embodiments combine hyperthermal ion beams and can include layered three-dimensional electrodes with passageways through the electrodes, each electrode having a specified DC voltage and each passageway configured for passing an ion beam to an exit, the velocity vectors of the beams being primarily oriented along the lens' central axis upon exiting the passageways. Embodiments include nested electrode plates with curved ion beam passageways. In some embodiments each electrode plate has a charge different from the electrode plates adjacent to it, and in some embodiments every other electrode plate is charged with a first DC voltage and the remaining plates are charged with a second DC voltage different from the first DC voltage.

A mass spectrometer comprising: a vacuum chamber; and an ion inlet assembly for transmitting analyte ions into the vacuum chamber; wherein the spectrometer is configured to operate in a cooling mode in which it selectively controls one or more gas flow to the ion inlet assembly for actively cooling the ion inlet assembly.

An ion detector that can detect either positive or negative ions comprises: an ion inlet comprising an ion focusing lens; a dynode having a surface configured to intercept, within a zone of interception, a stream of ions passing through the ion focusing lens, wherein a plane that is tangent to the dynode surface at the zone of interception is disposed at an angle to a line that passes through the center of the dynode surface and the center of the focusing lens; a scintillator having a surface that is configured to receive secondary electrons emitted from the zone of interception; a scintillator electrode affixed to the scintillator surface; a photodetector configured to receive photons emitted by the scintillator and to generate an electric signal in response thereto; and one or more power supplies electrically coupled to the focusing lens, the dynode, the scintillator electrode and the photodetector.

A time-of-flight, TOF, mass spectrometer, MS, comprising: an ion source for supplying a group of ions, including a first ion having a first mass-to-charge ratio m.sub.1/z.sub.1, a second ion having a second mass-to-charge ratio m.sub.2/z.sub.2 and a third ion having a third mass-to-charge ratio m.sub.3/z.sub.3 wherein m.sub.3/z.sub.3>m.sub.2/z.sub.2>at a time t.sub.0; a first set of electrodes, including a first electrode, and a second set of electrodes, including a first electrode and an Nth electrode, wherein the first set of electrodes and the second set of electrodes are mutually spaced apart by a gap therebetween; an ion detector for detecting the ions; a set of power supplies, including a first power supply, electrically coupled to the first set of electrodes and to the second set of electrodes; and a controller configured to control the set of power supplies to apply respective potentials to the first set of electrodes and the second set of electrodes; wherein the controller is configured to control the set of power supplies to: provide a first substantially field-free region between the ion source and the first set of electrodes to allow the group of ions to expand theretowards and/or therein, at the time t0; apply an extraction potential V.sub.extraction to the first set of electrodes at a time t.sub.extraction>t.sub.0, to extract the expanded group of ions, while maintaining a second substantially field-free region beyond the first set of electrodes, in the gap between the first set of electrodes and the second set of electrodes; and optionally, change an acceleration potential V.sub.acceleration applied to the second set of electrodes during a time period Δt=t.sub.off−t.sub.on, wherein ton>t.sub.extraction, to vary acceleration of the extracted group of ions based, at least in part, on respective mass-to-charge ratios.