Spatial-velocity correlation focusing in time-of-flight mass spectrometry

摘要

An apparatus and method for minimizing ion peak width measurements in a time-of-flight mass spectrometer to thereby minimize the effects of initial ion position distributions and initial ion velocity distributions on the mass resolution of the spectrometer are provided. Where the ion source and ion generation geometries indicate a functional relationship between the initial ion position and initial ion velocity, this relationship is substituted into the time-of-flight equation and the instrument parameters are thereafter optimized to achieve minimization of ion peak width broadening. Experimental results using MALDI indicate reductions in ion peak widths of up to 96% over those observed with traditional MALDI techniques.