The Mass Spectrometer

Initializing live version
Download to Desktop

Requires a Wolfram Notebook System

Interact on desktop, mobile and cloud with the free Wolfram Player or other Wolfram Language products.

The mass spectrometer is a device used to study isotopes of ions produced in a cathode ray tube. Isotopes of an element share the same chemical properties but have different masses and produce different values for their charge-to-mass ratio. An electron beam strikes vapor atoms that yield positive ions accelerated by a potential difference and deflected by a uniform magnetic field to hit a photographic plate. Mass spectrometry can also be used to identify molecules by analyzing the masses of its fragments.

Contributed by: Enrique Zeleny (March 2011)
Open content licensed under CC BY-NC-SA


Snapshots


Details

The charge-to-mass ratio of an ion can be derived from Newton's second law and the Lorenz force, yielding

,

where is the charge, is the mass, is the potential difference, is the magnetic field intensity, and is the radius of gyration.



Feedback (field required)
Email (field required) Name
Occupation Organization
Note: Your message & contact information may be shared with the author of any specific Demonstration for which you give feedback.
Send