First investigation of phase-shifted Ramsey excitation in Penning trap mass spectrometry

The excitation with time-separated oscillatory fields of the ion's cyclotron motion inside a Penning trap is used to improve the precision of mass measurements. In this work at TRIGA-TRAP the effect of a phase shift of the radio frequency field between the two Ramsey excitation pulses on the resulting ion-cyclotron-resonance time-of-flight line shape is investigated and compared with theoretical predictions.

Graphical abstractFigure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload high-quality image (179 K)Download as PowerPoint slideResearch highlights▶ A phase-shift between two Ramsey excitation pulses modifies the resonance profile. ▶ The analytically derived resonance for this excitation has been verified. ▶ The effect of an unknown phase-shift has been studied.