We describe a new tandem mass spectrometer which has been designed to investigate sputtering phenomena at solid surfaces under bombardment with polyatomic projectile ions with particular emphasis on the detection of neutral atoms and clusters ejected from the surface. The primary ions are generated in a cluster ion source which is based on pulsed laser ionization of neutral particles sputtered from another solid surface bombarded with 5-keV Xe ions. In order to characterize the sputtering processes initiated by these ions, neutral atoms and clusters ejected from the target surface are analyzed by means of single photon ionization using an intense pulsed VUV laser in a second, re¯ectron type timeof-¯ight (ToF) mass spectrometer. We report on ®rst results obtained with this instrument regarding the self-sputtering of a polycrystalline silver surface under bombardment with 8-keV atomic silver ions and polyatomic silver cluster ions. More speci®cally, the yields of neutral Ag n clusters with n 1Y F F F Y 4 as well as the variation of the total sputtering yield have been determined using Ag , Ag 2 and Ag 3 projectile ions. Ó