The author provides, in nine chapters, a compact and up-to-date coverage of the entire range of applications of the two most important ion traps: the Paul('radiofrequency') trap and the Penning('dc) trap. The book begins with full details of the ion confinement principles of both these traps; this is followed by a presentation of the basic experimental techniques, including details of a few actual traps. There is then a chapter on the methods of ion cooling, now an essential integral part of all trap-based experiments. The next four chapters provide a comprehensive coverage of applications in four major areas, broadly classified as: atomic physics, frequency standards, collision studies, and analytical mass spectrometry. The text is appended by a set of more than 600 fully titled chronologically arranged references which mirror the growth of the field as well as providing a comprehensive guide to original research papers. The text should be useful to students both at the senior undergraduate and beginning graduate level as a general reader for professionals in atomic physics, chemical physics, mass spectometry and related fields.

Ion traps are powerful experimental devices in which charged particles can be confined indefinitely in a small region of space and permit experiments to be done on them. Two of the three 1989 Nobel prizes in Physics were awarded for ion trap work. Besides atomic physics they have applications in analytical mass spectrometry. This book presents principles of operation of ion traps and all applications to atomic physics, frequency standards, collisional studies, and analytical mass spectrometry. The book will serve the purpose of a text at the senior undergraduate and beginning graduate level and of a general purpose reader to professionals interested in the subject.