The performance of the commissioned Notre Dame multi-reflection time-of-flight mass spectrometer

Abstract

The future N=126 factory at Argonne National Laboratory is aimed to produce neutron-rich elements around the N=126 peak of the rapid-neutron capture process using multi-nucleon transfer reactions. However, this radioactive ion beam production method will entail the delivery of contaminant ions. To remove the isobar contaminants from the beam, a multi-reflection time-of-flight mass spectrometer has been built and successfully commissioned at the University of Notre Dame, reaching a resolving power of 70,000, with an efficiency of 10%. According to stability study conducted, the resolving power is potentially limited to 83,000 by the power supply stability, however it can be mitigated by the addition of RC filtration as done for other MR-TOFs. The commissioned MR-TOF has been transported to Argonne National Laboratory to be used in the N=126 factory.