LASER-PRODUCED IONS STORED IN A CYLINDRICAL ION-TRAP AND DETECTED IN A REFLECTRON TIME-OF-FLIGHT MASS-SPECTROMETER

A home-built cylindrical ion trap (CIT) is integrated into a reflectron time-of-flight (RETOF) mass spectrometer yielding a cylindrical ion trap reflectron time-of-flight (CIT-RETOF) mass spectrometer. A detailed description of the design and the experimental conditions is presented. In first experiments, polyatomic molecular ions are produced inside the ion trap by resonance-enhanced multi-photon ionization (REMPI) in a cold molecular beam passing the ion trap. Experimental results demonstrate that the ions are stored for several 100 ms without damping gas and detected with high signal-to-noise ratio and good mass resolution of m/Delta m = 1100. As a future application the investigation of gas phase reactions of ions on the ms time scale is discussed.