SBIR Phase I: Optimized Extraction and Projection Optics for Ion Point Sources

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This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project seeks to demonstrate a technology advance in the field of imaging mass spectrometry. A successful project will enable: (1) markedly improved mass resolving power sufficient to separate key mass interferences that limit the technique, and (2) introduction of a new generation of position-sensitive ion detectors to dramatically improve data acquisition rates by 100 times and detection efficiency to 100%. These developments will create an opportunity to rethink the underlying architecture of commercial stigmatic-imaging time-of-flight mass spectrometry microscopes. With this technology, a new generation of instruments will be realized. The addressable market opportunity for these instruments is currently about $50 million per annum and is expected to grow with the new superior performance and with increasing need which grows more acute with time. Such improved instruments can beneficially impact major industries such as semiconductors ($450 billlon per year) and metals ($12 trillion per year). Improvements in the quality, quantity, and availability of atomic-scale information from imaging mass spectrometry instruments thus can have a large impact on technological progress. The advances sought in this project are the first steps toward new tools that will meet the demands of scientists and engineers for decades. The intellectual merit of this project is embodied in an experimental test of a new optical approach to control beam divergence from point sources of charged particles. By controlling beam divergence, ion imaging detectors can be optimally adapted to record images with superior properties. This will significantly advance fields of stigmatic-imaging mass spectrometry and ion-beam projection instrumentation. Extensive computer simulations have been conducted and used to aid design of prototype ion optics. The ability of these optics to control the ion beam divergence while projecting stigmatic ion images must be confirmed. Such ion images will be recorded over a wide range of operating conditions of the ion source and optics. A proof-of-concept experiment is proposed here to validate predictions of modeling. The quality of the projection will be assessed and compared with the simulations for validation of the models and further optimization aiming at development of a product prototype. This work will enable 1) long-sought-after imaging time-of-flight mass spectrometry measurements with large field of view and high mass resolving power for precise ion identification, and 2) implementation of a new generation of ion detectors that offer 100% detection efficiency and a hundred-fold increase in data acquisition rate.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.