Ion mobility spectrometer instrument and method of operating same

摘要

An ion mobility spectrometer instrument has a drift tube that is partitioned into a plurality of cascaded drift tube segments. A number of electric field activation sources may each be coupled to one or more of the plurality of drift tube segments. A control circuit is configured to control operation of the number of electric field activation sources in a manner that applies switched electric fields at a specified switching rate to the drift tube segments to thereby produce at the ion outlet only ions having a predefined ion mobility or range of ion mobilities.