Isotopic Selectivity in Ultrasensitive RIMS

Recent demonstrations of the extremely high efficiency and selectivity of multiphoton resonance ionization(l-5) have stimulated interest in combining this ionization mode with the mass selectivity of mass spectrometry to produce a resonance ionization mass spectrometer (RIMS) with superior isotopic selectivity and sensitivity. Such a measurement system can be functionally categorized into tour components: atomization, ionization, ion manipulation, and ion detection and labeling. It is the purpose of this paper to explore systematically the potential of RIMS as realized with a magnetic sector mass spectrometer.