Chemical analysis using hyphenated low and high field ion mobility
AssigneeImplant Sciences Corporation
InventorsDmitriy V. Ivashin, Saïd Boumsellek
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Abstract
Using combined orthogonal techniques, such as low (IMS) and high (FAIMS) field mobility techniques, offers several advantages to ion detection and analysis techniques including low cost, no vacuum required, and the generation of 2-D spectra for enhanced detection and identification. Two analytical devices may be operated in different modes, which results in overall flexibility by adapting the hyphenated instrument to the application's requirements. With the IMS-FAIMS hardware level flexibility, the instruments may be configured and optimized to exploit different trade-offs suitable for a variety of detection scenarios of for different lists of target compounds.
Claims22
A chemical detection and analysis system, comprising:
- an ion mobility spectrometer (IMS) device having a drift tube that includes a first end with a sample inlet and a second end that is downstream from the first end, wherein ions from ionization of a sample input via the sample inlet are introduced into the drift tube;
- a gate grid coupled to the second end of the drift tube;
- and
- a high field asymmetric waveform ion mobility spectrometer (FAIMS) device, being of a device type different from the IMS device, coupled downstream from the IMS device and downstream from the gate grid, wherein the ions from the drift tube are selectively gated to yield gated ions via control of at least one voltage pulse to the gate grid, and wherein the gated ions are transported from the gate grid to the FAIMS device for analysis by the FAIMS device.
A method for performing chemical detection and analysis, comprising:
- ionizing a sample in an ion mobility spectrometer (IMS) device having a drift tube that includes a first end with a sample inlet and a second end that is downstream from the first end, wherein ions from the ionization of the sample are introduced into the drift tube;
- controlling at least one voltage pulse to a gate grid coupled to the second end of the drift tube to selectively gate ions for analysis to yield gated ions at the gate grid;
- performing an analysis on the gated ions using a high field asymmetric waveform ion mobility spectrometer (FAIMS) device, being of a device type different from the IMS device, coupled downstream from the IMS device and downstream from the gate grid, wherein the gated ions are transported from the gate grid to the FAIMS device for analysis by the FAIMS device.
A non-transitory computer readable medium storing software for controlling chemical detection and analysis processes, the software comprising:
- executable code that controls ionizing of a sample at a frequency determined according to an operational mode of a chemical detection and analysis system;
- executable code that determines a drift time of an ion of interest through a drift tube of an ion mobility spectrometer (IMS) device;
- executable code that controls at least one voltage pulse of a gate grid coupled to the drift tube of the IMS device, wherein controlling the gate grid selectively gates ions for analysis to yield gated ions at the gate grid, wherein the gated ions are transported from the gate grid to a high field asymmetric waveform ion mobility spectrometer (FAIMS) device, being of a device type different from the IMS device, wherein the FAIMS device is coupled downstream from the IMS device and downstream from the gate grid, and wherein the gated ions are analyzed at the FAIMS device.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.