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Miniaturized Mass Spectrometer

Summary

Sandia's invention relates to a miniaturized mass spectrometer using a silicon chip field emitter array as the source of electrons for impact ionization of chemical species.

Description

Sandia has developed an improved quadrupole mass spectrometer (QMS).  The improvement lies in the substitution of the conventional hot flament electron source with a cold cathode field emitter array (FEA), which in turn, allows the operations of a small QMS at much higher internal pressures then are currently achievable.  By eliminating the hot flament, problems such as the thermal "cracking of delicate analytes molecules, outgassing of a "hot" flament, high-power requirements, flament contamination by outgas species, and spurious electromagnetic fields are avoided altogether. In addition, the ability to produce FEAs using well-known and well-developed photolithographic techniques permits the building of a QMS that has multiple redundancies of the ionization source at very low additional cost.

Benefits

  • Low cost compared to other types of mass spectrometers
  • Simple and reliable
  • Relatively high pressure

Applications and Industries

  • Real-time exhaust gas analysis for automotive applications
  • Leak detection, residual gas analysis
  • Thermal desorption mass spectroscopy
  • Molecular beam analysis
  • Environmental analysis for liquid and gas samples

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Quadrupole Mass Filter
Quadrupole Mass Filter

Intellectual Property

Title
ID Number
Patent Number
Date
Miniature quadrupole mass spectrometer having a cold cathode ionization source 8174.1 6,452,167 09/17/2002
Issued
Method for analyzing the mass of a sample using a cold cathode ionization source mass filter 8174.2 6,633,041 10/14/2003
Issued
Technology IDSD#8174Development StageProposed - Sandia estimates this technology at a Technology Readiness Level 3. Active research and development is initiated and the concepts were demonstrated analytically or experimentally. AvailabilityAvailable - Various licensing and partnering options are available. Please contact the Intellectual Property Department to discuss.Published09/29/2011Last Updated01/23/2013