Patent ID: 7064318

Claim:
A method of calibrating an ion source, the ion source including a sample control system including a sample holder for supporting a sample plate in a sample plane and a laser source having a focal point representing a point at which a beam generated by the laser source intersects the sample plane, the method comprising: mounting a sample plate in the sample holder, the sample plate including one or more fiducials defining reference points of a sample plate coordinate system and one or more target regions at one or more predefined locations in the sample plate coordinate system; determining a relationship between the coordinate system of the sample plate and a coordinate system of the sample control system, the relationship being determined at least in part by aligning one or more fiducials relative to a reference point of the sample control system using computer-implemented pattern recognition techniques; and using the determined relationship to align one of the target regions of the sample plate with ion optics of a mass spectrometer for a mass spectrometric analysis.