Energy Resolved Mass Spectrometer

The Hiden EQP 300 HE is an energy resolved mass spectrometer which is used to measure time resolved ion energy distribution functions (IEDF) of high power pulsed magnetron sputtering (HiPIMS) discharges.

The mass spectrometer has a quadrupol filter which allows the detection of ion masses up to 300 atomic mass units (amu) with a precision of 0.01 amu. In its standard variation the energy filter, consisting of two parallel plates with a voltage apllied to, is capable of measuring the energy of ions in a range of -100 eV up to 100 eV in steps of 0.01 eV. The addition of the high energy component (HE) allows for measurements of ion energies from -1000 eV up to 1000 eV. An ionisator can be used for the detection of neutral particles.

A secondary electron multiplier is used as a detector to count ion rates. Attached to the analogue output of the detector is a transient recorder which is capable of counting events with a temporal resolution of 100 ns.

The mass spectrometer needs to be pumped separately from the vacuum chamber to which it is attached. The separate pumping reduces the amount of collisions that particles undergo in the mass spectrometer and, thus, increases the transmission of the particles.