An Indigenously Developed Dual Time of Flight Mass Spectrometer Setup with Nanocluster and Electrospray Sources for Gas Phase Studies

This paper reports on the dual time-of-flight mass spectrometer coupled to a magnetron based source for metal nanoclusters and an electrospray ion source for gas phase studies, all developed indigenously. The system consists of a reflectron time-of-flight and a linear time-of-flight mass spectrometers positioned perpendicular to each other. It can distinctly measure time events separated by 1.4 nanoseconds and distinguish species on an abundance scale of 1/2000. Various applications in different studies, e.g. identification of isomers of small water clusters, simultaneous growth of positive, negative and neutral copper clusters and isotopic abundance within single cluster masses are discussed. The studies depict the compatible utility of a sophisticated home-built instrument.