Computing the Parameters of an Orthogonal Accelerator Based on a Wedge-Shaped Electrostatic Mirror with a 2D Field

Abstract

A wedge-shaped mirror with a two-dimensional field, used as an orthogonal ion accelerator and a time-of-flight mass spectrometer, is considered. A nonuniform electric field is generated in the mirror by varying the potentials on its boundary electrodes without electrostatic grids. An ion bunch extracted from the source is accelerated by a field pulse in the mirror, and its size along the direction of motion is considerably reduced. The characteristics of the proposed time-of-flight spectrometer are obtained via a Monte Carlo simulation, allowing for the thermal spread of ion velocities.