Precise ion beam focusing deflectors are required for mass spectrometry devices, particle detectors, and many other scientific instruments. Standard deflectors offer a trade-off between simplicity and performance: traditional cylindrical deflectors or quadrupoles are simple and inexpensive while spherical deflectors offer improved efficiency with increased complexity and costs. This technology combines the advantages of both cylindrical and spherical deflectors into a simple and highly efficient ion beam deflector. The double-focusing cylindrical ion deflector has an ultra-low cost and can be rapidly fabricated in a mechanical shop, with performance that is competitive with spherical detectors whose costs and complexity are much greater.
Standard cylindrical ion beam deflectors often induce beam deformation unless supplemented by expensive asymmetrical lenses. Quadrupoles are sometimes used as an alternative but require high voltages and generate beam asymmetries. Spherical deflectors, while maintaining excellent beam focus, are complicated and expensive to build because they involve nested spheres of different radii. This technology improves on all three standard deflection methods through its simplicity, low cost, and excellent focusing properties. While derived from cylindrical deflectors, this technology can focus beams both in the plane of curvature and the plane perpendicular to it. The outgoing beam remains finely focused and spherical in cross-section, eliminating the need for corrective optics.
The device itself is nonhazardous and made from readily available and inexpensive materials.
Patent Issued (US 8,309,936)
Tech Ventures Reference: IR M09-051