An inexpensive, versatile micro-machined mass spectrometer

The inexpensive, versatile micro-machined mass spectrometer (IVM^{2}-MS) is envisioned as a inexpensive replacement for large, complex, macroscopic instruments in use in the field and in the laboratory. At its core it is a 180 degree magnetic deflection mass filter fabricated from Si wafers. A small vacuum chamber for mass separation with an entrance slit and exit slit are micro-machined from the wafer by anistropic etching. An acceleration grid is built over the entrance slit and a small faraday cup built around the exit slit using standard lithographic methods. On the largest dimension they are on the order of 1.5 millimeters, with different accelerator to collector distances useful for changing the m/Z tuning characteristics of the filter. Arrays of such small mass filters can be created on a single wafer, and multichannel detection becomes trivial. Funding is requested to fabricate such a device and perform an elementary proof-of-concept study.