Miniaturized Mass Spectrometer
Technology 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
Portfolio name
Sensors & Detectors
Download the PDFs for more information
- Market Sheet (243 KB)
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 |