Simulating a Multi-Reflection Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrograph for the Purification of Radioactive Isobars

A Multi-Reflection Time-of-Flight mass spectrograph (MR-TOF) is being designed for the future Notre Dame Radioactive Ion Beam facility. The MR-TOF will provide isobarically pure beams to experiments. Design considerations for the MR-TOF include its geometry, its electrode voltages, and the choice of ion extraction scheme. These considerations were investigated using SIMION simulations. As a benchmark, we first optimized the electrode voltages of the ISOLTRAP MR-TOF geometry. The preliminary simulations involved varying two electrode voltages with the remaining electrodes held fixed and resulted in a mass resolving power \textless TOF\textgreater / $\Delta $TOF $\approx $ 45,000. Further simulations to optimize the~remaining~three electrodes will be required to~reach higher mass resolving power.