SPECTRUM MEASUREMENT USING DISCRETE DETECTOR ARRAYS

Modern spectrometers can produce highly resolved spectra, but this abi lity has not yet been matched by an ability to measure them efficientl y and for instruments such as a spatially dispersive mass spectrometer it is in the development of high-performance focal plane detectors (F PDs) where there are enormous gains in efficiency to be achieved. In t his paper two key questions are addressed: (a) how much information do es a 1D spectrum or 2D image contain?; and (b) can a given FPD capture all this information? In answering these questions, issues of perform ance, data quality and technology limitations of 1D and 2D arrays of c ounters arise naturally. A procedure is evolved for comparing the perf ormance of a detector and a spectrometer which is not limited to spati ally dispersive instruments. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.