A simple and compact system for energy, charge and mass analysis of ions formed in laser-produced plasmas

Abstract

A system has been designed to study the energy distributions and the charge and mass composition of the ions emitted by laser-produced plasmas. A Nd: YAG laser is focused on a solid sample in vacuum, providing laser power densities of about 10 10 W cm -2. Multiply charged ions are formed with energies ranging from several eV to keV. The time-of-flight technique combined with energy selection by means of an electrostatic analyzer was used to separate the ions of different masses and charges, obtaining a mass resolution of 180 with a compact size. This paper describes the experimental system and some illustrative results about ion energy distributions and their dependence on the laser power density. Also some examples of mass and charge separation are presented, showing the applicability of the system to multielemental analysis.