Ion trap with integrated time-of-flight mass spectrometer

TL;DR

This paper presents an integrated ion trap and time-of-flight mass spectrometer system with enhanced mass resolution and detection capabilities, achieved through innovative electronics and sample preparation at ultracold temperatures.

Contribution

It introduces a novel integrated RF ion trap with a compact TOFMS, achieving high mass resolution and detailed implementation of specialized electronics for system operation.

Findings

Mass resolution exceeds m/Δm=500

Isotopic resolution over a broad mass range

Almost tenfold improvement over previous systems

Abstract

Recently, we reported an ion trap experiment with an integrated time-of-flight mass spectrometer (TOFMS) [Phys. Rev. Appl. 2, 034013 (2014)] focussing on the improvement of mass resolution and detection limit due to sample preparation at millikelvin temperatures. The system utilizes a radio-frequency (RF) ion trap with asymmetric drive for storing and manipulating laser-cooled ions and features radial extraction into a compact $275$ mm long TOF drift tube. The mass resolution exceeds $m / \Delta m = 500$, which provides isotopic resolution over the whole mass range of interest in current experiments and constitutes an improvement of almost an order of magnitude over other implementations. In this manuscript, we discuss the experimental implementation in detail, which is comprised of newly developed drive electronics for generating the required voltages to operate RF trap and TOFMS, as well as control electronics for regulating RF outputs and synchronizing the TOFMS extraction.