Methods and Apparatus for Reducing Noise in Mass Spectrometry

摘要

The invention pertains to methods and apparatus for performing mass spectrometry with reduced noise. A method includes ionizing a sample analyte (401), segregating the resulting ions by mass to charge ratio (405), detecting the segregated ions 407) and introducing a metastable reducing gas into the mass spectrometer (100) after ionizing and before detecting. A mass spectrometer apparatus (100) includes an ionization volume (107), one or more mass analyzers (113, 117), a collision cell (115) and a detector (119).