A compact high-resolution X-ray ion mobility spectrometer

Journal Article · Sun May 15 00:00:00 EDT 2016 · Review of Scientific Instruments

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4950866· OSTI ID:22597934

Reinecke, T.; Kirk, A. T.; Heptner, A.; Niebuhr, D.; Böttger, S.; Zimmermann, S. ^[1]

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1. Department of Sensors and Measurement Technology, Institute of Electrical Engineering and Measurement Technology, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Appelstr. 9A, 30167 Hannover (Germany)

For the ionization of gaseous samples, most ion mobility spectrometers employ radioactive ionization sources, e.g., containing {sup 63}Ni or {sup 3}H. Besides legal restrictions, radioactive materials have the disadvantage of a constant radiation with predetermined intensity. In this work, we replaced the {sup 3}H source of our previously described high-resolution ion mobility spectrometer with 75 mm drift tube length with a commercially available X-ray source. It is shown that the current configuration maintains the resolving power of R = 100 which was reported for the original setup containing a {sup 3}H source. The main advantage of an X-ray source is that the intensity of the radiation can be adjusted by varying its operating parameters, i.e., filament current and acceleration voltage. At the expense of reduced resolving power, the sensitivity of the setup can be increased by increasing the activity of the source. Therefore, the performance of the setup can be adjusted to the specific requirements of any application. To investigate the relation between operating parameters of the X-Ray source and the performance of the ion mobility spectrometer, parametric studies of filament current and acceleration voltage are performed and the influence on resolving power, peak height, and noise is analyzed.

• OSTI ID: 22597934
• Journal Information: Review of Scientific Instruments, Vol. 87, Issue 5; Other Information: (c) 2016 Author(s); Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0034-6748
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
ACCELERATION
CURRENTS
DRIFT TUBES
ELECTRIC POTENTIAL
FILAMENTS
ION MOBILITY
IONIZATION
IONS
LENGTH
NICKEL 63
NOISE
PARAMETRIC ANALYSIS
PERFORMANCE
RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS
RESOLUTION
SENSITIVITY
SPECTROMETERS
TRITIUM
X RADIATION
X-RAY SOURCES