Back to results
US 11,081,328 B2Granted
Maintaining spectral quality over long measuring periods in imaging mass spectrometry
OwnerJens Höhndorf, Andreas Haaseinventors
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Loading patent…
Loading patent…
OwnerJens Höhndorf, Andreas Haaseinventors
Estimating the term…
The invention relates to imaging mass spectrometry on thin sample sections, in particular using MALDI, where a high lateral image resolution means that a plethora of mass spectra has to be acquired and the image acquisition runs over many hours. The quality of the mass spectra deteriorates considerably over time in such cases. The invention is based on the finding that the decrease in spectral quality of continuous measurement series over many hours is only partially caused by a decrease in detector gain, and that another significant cause is a decrease in the number of usable ions per ion generating pulse, which is attributable to several phenomena that are difficult to regulate. The invention now proposes to instead regulate only the detector gain, and such that not only the decrease in the detector gain is compensated, but also the decrease in the number of usable ions per ion generating pulse.
A method for imaging mass spectrometry on thin sample sections, from which a large number of mass spectra are continuously acquired in a mass spectrometer with ion detector via a pixel pattern in order to record a distribution of signals in the thin sample sections, where regulating an ion detector voltage enables ion currents, which are measured by the detector across a selected mass range in the mass spectra and summed, to be kept constant at a target value in the long term over the measurement of many mass spectra in order to maintain the quality of the mass spectra over a period of many hours until the end of the measurements.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.