Plasma-source sector mass spectrometry with array detection

The combination of a mass spectrograph and an array detector possesses several potential advantages over more conventional methods of mass spectrometric analysis. The desirable features of this instrumental combination result from its most important quality, the ability to perform simultaneous analysis of an entire m/z range. These advantages include greater throughput (Felgett advantage), greater precision through isotope ratio determination, and superior analysis of fast, transient signals such as those produced by gas and liquid chromatographies, capillary electrophoresis, flow injection analysis, and laser ablation. Currently, two research groups are investigating the utility of incorporating ionization sources suitable for elemental analysis to mass spectrograph/array detector instrumentation. While progress has been made in both research groups, each project still has significant work ahead in order to realize fully the advantages of a sector mass spectrometer/array detector system. This review focuses primarily on the efforts of these two groups over approximately the last 6 years. However, basic discussions on several other topics including array detectors, the Mattauch-Herzog spectrograph geometry, and fundamental differences between simultaneous and scanning data acquisition are also presented.