A laser ion-mobility spectrometer

The process of ion-packet broadening in a longitudinal laser spectrometer of ion mobility is studied. The contributions of the diffusion, Coulomb, and other broadening mechanisms are compared. The resolution of the developed spectrometer was measured (R ∼ 45) in atmospheres of both purified air and pure nitrogen. The dependence of the spectrometer resolution on the drift voltage was studied. The recorded spectra of a number of molecules of explosives with an extremely low pressure of saturated vapors indicate a high sensitivity of the developed spectrometer (no worse than 10⁻¹⁴ g/cm³). Original Russian Text ? G.E. Kotkovskii, I.L. Martynov, V.V. Novikova, A.A. Chistyakov, 2009, published in Pribory i Tekhnika Eksperimenta, 2009, No. 2, pp. 110–116.