  A laser ablation ion source (LAS) is a powerful tool by which diverse species
of ions can be produced for mass spectrometer calibration, or surface study
applications. It is necessary to frequently shift the laser position on the
target to selectively ablate materials in a controlled manner, and to mitigate
degradation of the target surface caused by ablation. An alternative to
mounting the target onto a rotation wheel or $x-y$ translation stage, is to
shift the laser position with a final reflection from a motorized kinematic
mirror mount. Such a system has been developed, assembled and characterized
with a two axis motorized mirror and various metal targets. In the system
presented here, ions are ablated from the target surface and guided by a 90
degree quadrupole bender to a Faraday cup where the ion current is measured.
Spatially resolved scans of the target are produced by actuating the mirror
motors, thus moving the laser spot across the target, and performing
synchronous measurements of the ion current to construct 2D images of a target
surface which can be up to 50~mm in diameter. The spatial resolution of the
system has been measured by scanning the interfaces between metals such as
steel and niobium, where it was demonstrated that the LAS can selectively
ablate an area of diameter $\approx$50 $\mu$m. This work informs the
development of subsequent LAS systems, that are intended to serve as
multi-element ion sources for commercial and custom-built time-of-flight mass
spectrometers, or to selectively study surface specific regions of samples.
