A ring stacked accelerator for use in a mass spectrometer includes a plurality of ring shaped plates arranged in a stack and is electrically coupled to a voltage divider that allows a substantially homogeneous electric field to be produced when the stack is energized. The voltage divider can include resistors and capacitors, where the capacitors are chosen to compensate for parasitic capacitances experienced by the plates. The ring stacked accelerator can be energized using an RF pulse. The ring stack accelerator can include one or more balancing capacitors for correcting effects that cause nonlinearity.