An imaging ion detector, consisting of an array of channel electron multipliers, a phosphor, an optical system, a vidicon camera, and a data acquisition unit, has been fitted to a Mattauch-Herzog mass spectrometer. The detector repiaces the conventional photographic plate in such instruments and has far greater sensitivity, although, in its present form, it gives lower resolution. its use in simultaneous multiple ion monitoring Is demonstrated and its application in ion kinetic energy spectrometry is foreseen. Deiiterious effects of fringing magnetic fields on the resolution of the device and saturation effects in the channeitron are discussed. The feasibility of achieving the enhanced sensitivity inherent in imaging detection in mass spectrometry is established.The photographic plate has played an important part in the practice of mass spectrometry since the earliest days. Specially prepared plates were used by Thomson (I, 2 ) in the detection system of the parabola spectrograph and similar plates are still used today on high resolution instruments (3-5) in which the arrangement of electric and magnetic fields used produces a plane of focus, as in the Mattauch-Herzog geometry (6). On the other hand, the electrical detection system used on other high and low resolution mass spectrometers has been continuously developed with respect to both its sensitivity and accuracy since the time when currents were detected using gold leaf electroscopes.
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