NSF Award
9461065
One critically needed improvement in mass spectrometry is increased ion detector dynamic range. Mass spectrometry is the most widely used analytical technique to analyze the chemical and structural properties molecules and compounds, with many applications in chemistry, biotechnology, and environmental science. The innovation NOVA Scientific, Inc. proposes will improve by several orders of magnitude the upper count rate limit in commercially available microchannel plate (MCP) ion detectors, widely used in mass spectrometry as well as other applications. The substantial reduction in MCP detector gain or efficiency which usually occurs from deadtime losses at high output count rates, will no longer occur. They will refine and commercialize a novel heat sinking approach using extremely low resistance MCPs; in earlier proof-of-concept experiments this approach resulted in count rates of 1010 to 1011 cm-2s-1, compared with 106 to 108 cm-2s-1 for conventional MCP detectors. This radical departure in MCP operation and mounting configuration will, if successful, have a significant impact in mass spectrometry; in particular, it will allow faster and more efficient chemical analysis. It will also impact many other commercial and scientific applications. In parallel, they will assess novel MCP single anode as well as imaging readouts which are compatible with this approach.
