Measurement of helium leaks 10 times better than the sensitivity of a mass spectrometer leak detector

The actual limit of helium leak detection is given by the highest sensitivity to helium of a mass spectrometer leak detector and can be considered to be 10⁻¹⁰ atm cc/sec. The output of such a leak detector is strongly influenced by the vacuum created at the height of the spectrometer tube. In this paper a method is proposed which permits the range of leak measurements to be extended by a factor of 10⁻⁵ over the actual limit of mass spectrometer leak measurements. The method is based on the accumulation of a leak, compared to the accumulation of a background over the same time. The rather complex manipulations are explained and justified so that the reader of the paper becomes familiar with this technique.