Handbook of Stable Isotope Analytical Techniques, Volume-I P.A. de Groot (Editor) © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. CHAPTER 38 Mass Spectrometer Hardware for Analyzing Stable Isotope Ratios Willi A. Brand Max-Planck-Institute for Biogeochemistry, PO Box 100164, 07701 Jena, Germany e-mail:
[email protected] Abstract Mass spectrometers and sample preparation techniques for stable isotope ratio measurements, originally developed and used by a small group of scientists, are now used in a wide range of fields. Instruments today are typically acquired from a manu- facturer rather than being custom built in the laboratory, as was once the case. In order to consistently generate measurements of high precision and reliability, an extensive knowledge of instrumental effects and their underlying causes is required. This con- tribution attempts to fill in the gaps that often characterize the instrumental knowl- edge of relative newcomers to the field. 38.1 Introduction Since the invention of mass spectrometry in 1910 by J.J. Thomson in the Cavendish laboratories in Cambridge(‘parabola spectrograph’; Thompson, 1910), this technique has provided a wealth of information about the microscopic world of atoms, mole- cules and ions. One of the first discoveries was the existence of stable isotopes, which were first seen in 1912 in neon (masses 20 and 22, with respective abundances of 91% and 9%; Thomson, 1913). Following this early work, F.W. Aston in the same laboratory set up a new instrument for which he coined the term ‘mass spectrograph’ which he used for checking almost all of the elements for the existence of isotopes.