Velocity-selected spatial map ion imaging spectrometer for direct imaging of near-surface catalytic activity

We propose and demonstrate an approach permitting direct imaging of the spatial distribution of gas-surface reaction products with <60 mu m lateral spatial resolution using a velocity filtered ion imaging technique. We demonstrate direct imaging of the density of hydrogen deuteride (HD) molecules desorbed from a patterned platinum (Pt) thin film exposed to molecular beams of hydrogen (H-2) and deuterium (D-2). Resonance enhanced multiphoton absorption was performed with a 2 + 1 scheme through the E,F state using a nanosecond UV laser at similar to 201 nm. The generated cations of HD, D-2, and H-2 were velocity filtered and accelerated with ion imaging optics toward a multichannel plate and phosphor screen. To reduce the significant image blur caused by the translational energy of the parent molecules, a grounded pinhole with 50 mu m diameter is placed at the velocity-mapped imaging plane of the ion optics, which velocity-filters the ions that form the image of the near-surface origination plane, improving the ion imaging resolution by a factor of similar to 10. The instrument demonstrates the capability to directly image catalytic output in the gas phase in the near-surface region with tens of micrometers of spatial resolution simultaneously with mass and molecular velocity resolution.

Automated summary

We propose and demonstrate a method for direct imaging of gas-surface reaction products with high spatial resolution using ion imaging technique. The density of hydrogen deuteride (HD) molecules desorbed from a patterned platinum (Pt) thin film exposed to hydrogen (H-2) and deuterium (D-2) molecular beams was imaged using a 2 + 1 resonance enhanced multiphoton absorption scheme. A velocity-filtered ion imaging system with a grounded pinhole was used to improve the spatial resolution by a factor of 10.