Design and Performance of Digital Rectilinear Ion Trap Mass Spectrometer

Ion trap mass spectrometer is one of the most widely used miniature mass spectrometer in recent years. In this paper, an ion trap mass spectrometer which combines the technology of digital Ion trap with the rectilinear ion trap (RIT) was studied. This new mass spectrometry system has the advantages of rectilinear 1011 trap and the digital electronic technology. On one hand, it has high ion storage efficiency, simple structure and constructional convenience as a RIT. On the other hand, it is easy to control precisely and work steadily which takes advantage of digital electronic technology. It will greatly improve the performance of the RIT mass analyzer, and simplify the manufacture of ion trap mass spectrometry. A home-made digital rectilinear ion trap mass spectrometer coupled with an electrospray ion source(ESI) was built, and Fenfluramine and PPG2000 were used to test its property including mass resolution and mass range. The preliminary experiment showed that a mass resolution in excess of 500 and a mass range of over 2600 Thomson were obtained, using a digital trapping voltage of only 200 V (zero-to-peak). The experiment results also showed great improvements on the performance of the RIT, especially on the enhancement of the mass range, which brought by the digital electronic technology.