An ultrahigh vacuum spectrometer system has been designed and constructed for obtaining spatial- and time-resolved, element-specific images of atoms that are scattered and recoiled from surfaces. A pulsed noble gas ion beam in the 1–5 keV range is used to scatter and recoil atoms from a surface. A large, position-sensitive microchannel plate detector with resistive anode encoder, that is sensitive both to ions and fast neutrals records the spatial distribution patterns of the emitted atoms. The use of time-of-flight methods allows capture of these patterns in time windows as short as 10 ns. The sensitivity of these patterns to the details of surface structure provides the basis for a scattering and recoiling imaging spectrometry (SARIS). The primary ion beam current is∼0.1 nA/cm2,supplied in 20 ns pulses at a rate of 30 kHz, resulting in∼5×102 ions/pulse;images with adequate statistics can be obtained in several seconds with a total ion dose of<1010 ions/cm2.The SARIS technique can provide unique, element-specific, real-space, surface structural information at a resolution of<0.1 Åon a time scale of seconds for analysis of surface composition, structure, and dynamics. Examples provided for demonstrating the capabilities of the system are 4 keVHe+andAr+scattering and recoiling from Pt{111} and 4 keVKr+scattering and recoiling from CdS{0001}. ©1998 American Institute of Physics.