An introduction to the time-of-flight technique

Abstract

In the last two decades, several new types of ion sources have been introduced in organic mass spectrometry like bombardment with heavy ions, PDMS, and laser light, MALDI. Hand in hand with the new ionization techniques followed also a renaissance for the 50 year old time-of-flight technique for the mass analyses. In this paper the basics of the ToF technique is described in a tutorial non-theoretical way for the beginner together with some practical hints. The electrostatic mirror, the delayed extraction technique as well as some recent technical developments are also included.