A Micro Ionizer for Portable Mass Spectrometers using Double-gated Isolated Vertically Aligned Carbon Nanofiber Arrays

Author

Chen, L.-Y. ; Velásquez-García, L.F. ; Wang, X. ; Teo, K. ; Akinwande, A.I.

Author_Institution

Massachusetts Inst. of Technol., Cambridge

fYear

2007

fDate

10-12 Dec. 2007

Firstpage

843

Lastpage

846

Abstract

We report micro-fabricated double-gated vertically aligned carbon nanofiber (CNF) arrays for ionization of gasses in low power portable mass spectrometers. The devices can be operated in one of two modes - electron impact ionization (EII ) or field ionization (FI). When operated as electron impact ionizer, power dissipation was reduced from >1 W typical of thermionic emission based electron impact ionizers to <100 mW. When operated as a field ionizer, the turn-on voltage for field ionization is reduced from 5-10 kV typical of ungated ionizers to 350 V.

Keywords

arrays; carbon fibres; electron impact ionisation; field ionisation; mass spectrometer accessories; mass spectrometers; micromachining; micromechanical devices; nanostructured materials; thermionic emission; double-gated isolated vertically aligned carbon nanofiber arrays; electron impact ionization mode; field ionization mode; gas ionization; low power portable mass spectrometers; microionizer; power dissipation; thermionic emission; Chemical vapor deposition; Electrodes; Electron emission; Electrostatics; Ionization; Isolation technology; Mass spectroscopy; Plasma chemistry; Thermionic emission; Voltage;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Electron Devices Meeting, 2007. IEDM 2007. IEEE International

Conference_Location

Washington, DC

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-1507-6

Electronic_ISBN

978-1-4244-1508-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IEDM.2007.4419080

Filename

4419080