Separating ions in an ion trap
AssigneeMicromass UK Limited
InventorsJason Lee Wildgoose, Keith Richardson, David J. Langridge, Martin Raymond Green, Steven Derek Pringle
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Abstract
A method is disclosed comprising: trapping ions in an ion trap (40); applying a first force on the ions within the ion trap in a first direction, said force having a magnitude that is dependent upon the value of a physicochemical property of the ions; applying a second force on these ions in the opposite direction so that the ions separate according to the physicochemical property value as a result of the first and second forces; and then pulsing or driving ions out of one or more regions of the ion trap.
Claims18
A method of mass spectrometry, comprising:
- spatially separating ions within a separating device according to a physicochemical property by applying a first force to the ions within the separation device in a first direction, said force having a magnitude that is dependent upon the value of said physicochemical property;
- and
- applying a second force on these ions in the opposite direction, so that ions having different values of said physicochemical property are trapped in different regions of the separating device;
- and then driving ions out of the separating device and into a downstream ion mobility separator, wherein said driving ions out of the separating device comprises driving ions out of the separating device in order of decreasing value of said physicochemical property, or in order of increasing value of said physicochemical property, and such that said ions having different values of said physicochemical property that are trapped in said different regions of the separating device are driven to move together towards the ion mobility separator;
- separating the ions in the ion mobility separator according to ion mobility;
- passing the ions to a downstream resolving quadrupole, wherein the mass to charge ratios transmitted by the resolving quadrupole are scanned with time;
- and then
- mass analysing ions in a time of flight mass analyser.
A mass spectrometer comprising:
- a separating device for spatially separating ions according to a physicochemical property;
- an ion mobility separator downstream of said separating device;
- a resolving quadrupole;
- a time of flight mass analyser;
- and
- a controller having a processor and electronic circuitry adapted and configured to:
- control the separating device so as to spatially separate ions trapped within the separating device according to said physicochemical property by applying a first force to the ions within the separating device in a first direction, said force having a magnitude that is dependent upon the value of said physicochemical property;
- and applying a second force on these ions in the opposite direction, so that ions having different values of said physicochemical property are trapped in different regions of the separating device;
- drive ions out of the separating device and into the ion mobility separator, wherein the ions are driven out of the separating device in order of decreasing value of said physicochemical property, or in order of increasing value of said physicochemical property, and such that said ions having different values of said physicochemical property that are trapped in said different regions of the separating device are driven to move together towards the ion mobility separator;
- separate the ions in the ion mobility separator according to ion mobility;
- passions to the resolving quadrupole;
- scan the mass to charge ratios transmitted by the resolving quadrupole with time;
- and then mass analyse ions in the time of flight mass analyser.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.