Filamentless Molecular Beam Ionizer for Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry

Recent innovations in diamond and boron nitride field emissive thin film fabrication have yielded materials which may be suitable as replacements for hot filament electron ionizers for mass spectrometers. Our phase I effort will be to fabricate an innovative ionizer structure and implement it in our existing compact time-of-flight analyzer design. We will further implement a molecular beam inlet system which increases sensitivity and reduces pumping requirements. The resulting instrument will be rugged, low power and suitable for remote monitoring of gas composition. A target cost for the entire unit not including pumping will be less than 10,000 dollars.