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US 6,690,005 B2Granted
Ion mobility spectrometer
AssigneeGeneral Electric Company
InventorsAnthony Jenkins, William J. McGann
Life of this patent
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AssigneeGeneral Electric Company
InventorsAnthony Jenkins, William J. McGann
Estimating the term…
An ion trap mobility spectrometer is provided with a reaction chamber and a drift chamber. Ions are produced in the reaction chamber by high voltage electronic pulses. More particularly, the ions are formed periodically and are allowed to thermalize in a field-free environment of the reaction chamber. The ions then react with molecular species in the gas phase in the reaction chamber. After a short period, the ions are pulsed into the drift section and are collected on a collector electrode disposed at the end of the drift chamber remote from the reaction chamber. The reaction period may be varied to sample the ion population at different intervals. This enables the ion-molecule reactions to be monitored as the ion population approaches equilibrium. The monitoring results can be used to determine differences between reacting species because the molecular ion population varies at different time points approaching equilibrium. This in turn provides improved identification of target materials.
An ion trap mobility spectrometer for analyzing sample molecules and for identifying the presence of molecules of interest among the sample molecules, the ion trap mobility spectrometer comprising:
A method for detecting molecules of interest from among sample molecules, said method comprising the steps of generating a flow of the sample molecules, imparting high voltage pulses for durations of less than 500 microseconds for electronically generating a quasi-neutral plasma of substantially equal numbers of positive and negative thermalized reactant ions, allowing the thermalized reactant ions to react with sample molecules to form sample ions in the reaction chamber and allowing the ions to drift through a drift section and detecting characteristics of the ions at an end of the drift section remote from the reaction chamber for identifying the molecules of interest.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.