Allectra has recently manufactured a custom flange for Spacetek Technology, a manufacturer of highly reliable and sensitive time-of-flight mass spectrometers.
Image credit: Allectra
These instruments are designed to provide real time measurements of residual and process gases in harsh and corrosive environments. The highly compact instruments provide 10 full mass spectra per second over a mass range from 1-1200 u/e.
Providing exceptional performance while keeping an attractive form factor and a high ease of maintenance, meant a simple assembly was required to mount the complete mass analyzer on a DN100 CF Flange. This base flange was developed and manufactured in close collaboration with Allectra.
For providing the instrument with the required voltages it features a Sub-D 25 way feedthrough, six 5kV feedthroughs and 2 SMA feedthroughs. Furthermore, it features a rectangular opening for the accommodation of the detector which can be replaced after reaching the end of life. The sealing of this opening requires a surface with a roughness of Ra 0.2, which has been polished at Allectra’s workshops. Finally, the flange also has a total of 40 threaded holes on the air and vacuum side and serves as a mechanical reference for the precision mechanics and the modular hardware architecture. During the design phase, the Allectra engineering team supported the development with their expertise in manufacturing high vacuum components, including optimization of the sealing surface, placement of the mechanical interfaces and welding techniques for the feedthroughs.
Tests at CERN showed that the instrument (and therefore the flange) performs well. It was possible to achieve pressures in the 10e-9 mbar range and bake-out temperatures of 130 °C. Extensive measurement campaigns at Spacetek Technology also proved that the instrument is capable of measuring isotopes of natural trace gases in air in the ppb range, for example, 132Xe at 23 ppb.