Ion profiling in an ambient drift tube-ion mobility spectrometer using a high pixel density linear array detector IonCCD.

A linear pixel-based detector array, the IonCCD, is characterized for use under ambient conditions with thermal (<1 eV) positive ions derived from purified air and a 10 mCi (63)Ni foil. The IonCCD combined with a drift tube-ion mobility spectrometer permitted the direct detection of gas phase ions at atmospheric pressure and confirmed a limit of detection of 3000 ions/pixel/frame established previously in both the keV (1-2 keV) and the hyper-thermal (10-40 eV) regimes. Results demonstrate the "broad-band" application of the IonCCD over 10(5) orders in ion energy and over 10(10) in operating pressure.

Drift tube soft-landing for the production and characterization of materials: applied to Cu clusters.

We have recently developed a soft-landing (SL) instrument that is capable of depositing ions onto substrates for preparative and developmental research of new materials using a laser ablation source. This instrument was designed with a custom drift tube and a split-ring ion optic for the isolation of selected ions. The drift tube allows for the separation and thermalization of ions formed after laser ablation through collisions with an inert bath gas.