Design and fabrication of a time-of-flight spectrometer for studies of multiple ionization of gases by charged particle impact

• DOI: 10.1007/s12043-002-0020-9
• Publication Date: 2007-11-24T20:57:20Z
• Authors: RK Singh; RK Mohanta; MJ Singh; R Hippler; SK Goel; R Shanker
• Keywords: 0103 physical sciences; 7. Clean energy; 01 natural sciences

A time-of-flight spectrometer has been designed and fabricated for measuring the charge state distributions of target ions produced in collisions of keV-electrons with gaseous target atoms/molecules. The design details of the spectrometer and the description of experimental procedures for optimizing various parameters are presented and discussed. The working principle of the spectrometer, its time- and mass-focussing conditions, transmissions and detection efficiency etc. are given. A few typical test runs on multiple ionization of Ne and Ar gas atoms are illustrated. These spectra are found to yield the time resolution of about 10 ns for Ar4+ ion peak in 24.0 keV e− — Ar collisions while the mass resolution of the spectrometer is obtained about 10% at mass m=20.