Time of flight mass spectrometry method and apparatus

摘要

A method and apparatus for performing time of flight mass spectrometry wherein the number of sums of transients taken for generating a given spectra is determined as a function of a characteristic of the incoming data for that spectrum. For instance, the number of transient measurements taken for a given spectrum output can be determined as a function of the abundance of ions in the sample or the abundance of ions corresponding to a base peak or another selected peak. In yet another embodiment, the collection of transients is terminated when a threshold signal to noise ratio is attained.