The Micro Mass Spectrometer with A Carbon Nano Structure Ion Source

This paper reports the fabrication and experiment of a micro time of flight (TOF) mass spectrometer adopting a new ion generation method using a carbon nanostructure. The device is composed of an ion source and an ion separator. The ion source generates electrons by the field emission method. Carbon nanostructure has good field emission property. The emitted electrons collide with sample molecules and ionize the sample molecules. These ions are accelerated by separator. The current output signal is generated when the ions reach the ion detector in the order of mass size. The size of the assembled micro TOF mass spectrometer is 11 times 11 times 1 mm3. The experiment is performed in a vacuum chamber. The sample gas is introduced to the chamber and suitable voltages are applied to separation electrodes for the ion acceleration. Then we observe the current signal from the ion detector. The experimental result verifies the feasibility of the ion source and the ion separator included in the fabricated micro mass spectrometer