Abstract: A spectrometry instrument, e.g., for time-resolved spectroscopy, has quick-change exchangeable accessories (48, 50, 52) which are manually attached via rotation of a camming means to engage and lock a stud member. A circuit element in each accessory (48, 50, 52), such as a resistor or a configured pin connection, acts to generate a voltage in the instrument that uniquely identifies which accessory is attached. A method for measuring a phosphorescence decay characteristic includes applying an excitation pulse to a sample (34); obtaining emission intensity data for a sequence of time delays following the excitation pulse; repeating for at least one further excitation pulse using a different sequence of time delays; and interleaving the data from different excitation pulses to construct a decay characteristic.

Abstract: A mass spectrometer having an ion reflecting instead of ion transmissive optics system. The spectrometer includes an ion source (16) for providing a beam of sample particles including ions along an axis (24). Its ion optics system (34-46) establishes a reflecting electrostatic field for reflecting ions along a path (30) from the particle beam and focussing them at an entrance aperture (26) of a mass analyser (25) and ion detector (27) for spectrometric analysis. The invention allows more efficient separation of ions from neutral particles, gives better signal to noise ratios and allows for a compact “optical” path and thus cheaper instrument to be manufacctured. The reflecting electrostatic field can also be used to filter higher energy ions from lower energy ions. An ion optical system as such is also disclosed.