Categories of exhibits
Ion source skimmers
Exhibit no. 605
A skimmer is a cone-like electrode with a small circular aperture, which is used to “skim” away boundary regions of ion beams and focus the ions through the aperture. They are often used to separate ions from an atmospheric pressure region into a differentially pumped mass spectrometry system. Skimmers are delicate precision components requiring careful handling. Common skimmers are fabricated out of stainless steel, but other materials coated with a conductive layer (for instance, aluminum-titanium nitride) can also be used.
The exhibits are skimmers from Esquire 2000 ion trap mass spectrometer for LC/MS manufactured by Bruker Daltonics around 2000. In this instrument, the ions passed through the glass capillary into the first of the vacuum stages at the end of the capillary. The skimmers removed the bulk of the drying gas. The ions then passed into an octopole ion guide that focused and transported the ions to the ion trap.
