Ion Guide for Mass Spectrometry

摘要

Methods and systems for transmitting ions in an ion guide are provided herein. In accordance with various aspects of the applicant's teachings, the methods and systems can cause at least a portion of ions entrained in a gas flow entering an ion guide to be extracted from the gas jet and be guided downstream along one or more path of gas flow, where the gas lacking the ions can be removed from the ion guide. In some embodiments, the ions extracted from the gas stream can be guided into a focusing region in which the ions can be focused, e.g., via RF focusing, to enter into subsequence processing stages, such as a mass analyzer.

主权项

1. An ion guide, comprising:
an enclosure comprising at least two opposed sidewalls extending longitudinally along a central axis from a proximal inlet end to a distal outlet end, the proximal inlet end being configured to receive a plurality of ions entrained in a gas flow through an inlet orifice disposed on the central axis; and an obstruction disposed within said enclosure between the proximal and distal ends, said obstruction deflecting at least a portion of the gas flow away from said central axis of the enclosure, wherein each of said opposed sidewalls comprises a plurality of electrodes to which RF and DC electric voltages are applied so as to generate an electric field for deflecting said entrained ions away from the central axis of the enclosure proximal to said obstruction and at least one electrode to which a RF electric potential is applied for focusing said deflected ions toward the central axis distal to said obstruction.