Simple cylindrical ion mirror with three elements

A new cylindrical ion mirror has been designed to create an electric field that is non-linear or curved along the flight path axis for general-purpose time-of-flight mass spectrometers. The inclusion of one or two grids is found to improve the radial field homogeneity especially around the aperture. Only three cylindrical electrodes are used in the design. Changing the electrode dimensions and voltages affects the electric field distribution. Once the electrode dimensions are fixed, there are only two adjustable parameters for achieving optimum nonlinear electric field shape. Resolving powers of 7,000 and 16,100 have been achieved with kinetic energy variations of 34 and 10.5%, respectively. Simulations show that the electric field homogeneity in the radial direction enables the use of ion beam diameters up to 15 mm with only modest loss of resolving power. Increasing the mirror diameter could further increase the practical ion beam diameter. This article details the electric field distribution within the cylindrical mirror in both axial and radial directions. The voltages of the middle and rear electrodes affect the resolving power and the kinetic energy range over which focus can be achieved. The predicted arrival time spread for a single m/z value is narrower than that caused by the turn-around time of ions in a gas-phase ion source. In this case, the broad energy range over which good focus is achieved enables the use of higher extraction fields for turn-around time reduction.