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

这个小企业创新研究第一阶段项目旨在展示成像质谱领域的技术进步。一个成功的项目将能够：（1）显著提高质量分辨率，足以分离限制该技术的关键质量干扰，以及（2）引入新一代位置敏感离子检测器，将数据采集率提高100倍，检测效率提高到100%。这些发展将创造一个机会，重新思考商业的像散成像飞行时间质谱显微镜的基础架构。有了这项技术，将实现新一代的仪器。这些工具的可寻址市场机会目前约为每年5000万美元，预计将随着新的上级性能和随着时间的推移而变得更加尖锐的日益增长的需求而增长。这种改进的工具可以有益地影响半导体（每年4500亿美元）和金属（每年12万亿美元）等主要行业。因此，来自成像质谱仪器的原子尺度信息的质量、数量和可用性的改进可以对技术进步产生巨大影响。该项目所寻求的进步是迈向新工具的第一步，这些新工具将满足科学家和工程师数十年的需求。这个项目的智力价值体现在一个新的光学方法来控制带电粒子点源的光束发散的实验测试。通过控制束发散，离子成像检测器可以最佳地适于记录具有上级特性的图像。这将大大推进像散成像质谱和离子束投影仪器领域。广泛的计算机模拟已经进行，并用于帮助设计的原型离子光学。必须确认这些光学器件在投射象散离子图像的同时控制离子束发散的能力。这样的离子图像将在离子源和光学器件的宽范围的操作条件下被记录。这里提出了一个概念验证实验，以验证建模的预测。将评估投影的质量，并与模拟进行比较，以验证模型并进一步优化产品原型的开发。这项工作将使1）长期追求的成像飞行时间质谱测量具有大视场和高质量分辨能力，用于精确的离子识别，以及2）实现新一代离子检测器，其提供100%的检测效率和100%的该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的学术价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。

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.