A collinear tandem time-of-flight mass spectrometer for infrared photodissociation spectroscopy of mass-selected ions

An apparatus based on collinear tandem time-of-flight mass spectrometer has been designed for the measurement of infrared photodissociation spectroscopy of mass-selected ions in the gas phase. The ions from a pulsed laser vaporization supersonic ion source are skimmed and mass separated by a Wiley-McLaren time-of-flight mass spectrometer. The ion of interest is mass selected, decelerated and dissociated by a tunable IR laser. The fragment and parent ions are reaccelerated and mass analyzed by the second time-of-flight mass spectrometer. A simple new assembly integrated with mass gate, deceleration and reacceleration ion optics was designed, which allows us to measure the infrared spectra of mass selected ions with high sensitivity and easy timing synchronization.