A corona ionization source assembly and fabrication methods are described that include a fine wire including a wire core including a first material, and a wire coating including a second material, where the wire coating surrounds a portion of the wire core, and the diameter of the wire coating is greater than the diameter of the wire core. Additionally, the fine wire may be coupled to a mounting post. In an implementation, a process for fabricating the corona ionization source assembly that employs the techniques of the present disclosure includes forming a wire core, forming a wire coating that surrounds the wire core, forming a mask layer on at least a portion of the wire coating, etching the wire coating, and removing the mask layer from the wire coating.

A method and apparatus for performing differential mobility spectrometer (DMS) which includes decreasing the amount of time that ions spend inside fringing fields generated by the DMS. The apparatus includes an entrance electrode plate sealingly engaged to the entrance of the DMS, and is electrically separated from the parallel plate electrodes of the DMS, the entrance electrode plate has an aperture for allowing the traversal of ions into the DMS; wherein the cross-sectional area of the aperture is less than the cross-sectional area of the ion path, the ion path being located between the two parallel plate electrodes of the DMS. The entrance electrode plate may also have a focusing potential applied to it for focusing of ions.

The present invention provides a field asymmetric ion mobility spectrometer for selectively separating at least one kind of material from a mixture containing two or more kinds of materials. A filter included in the spectrometry comprises first—four plate-like electrodes each having a principal plane parallel to a direction from an ionizer toward a filter. The second plate-like electrode is located between the first plate-like electrode and the third plate-like electrode. The third plate-like electrode is located between the second plate-like electrode and the fourth plate-like electrode. The third and fourth plate-like electrodes are electrically connected to the first and second plate-like electrodes, respectively. An interspace is formed between two adjacent plate-like electrodes. The present invention provides a field asymmetric ion mobility spectrometer having high separation ability.

A method of Fourier transform ion mobility spectrometry is disclosed wherein an absorption spectrum of the complex spectral data is used to determine the ion mobilities of ions.

The present invention comprises a method for automated, high throughput molecular identification of macromolecular organic compounds. The method may provide an approximate solution to a momentum transfer cross section of an analyte in a buffer gas as measured by an ion mobility spectrometer that has low computational demand, has a high level of accuracy, and is adaptable for a variety of drift gases.

A method is disclosed comprising: trapping ions in an ion trap (40); applying a first force on the ions within the ion trap in a first direction, said force having a magnitude that is dependent upon the value of a physicochemical property of the ions; applying a second force on these ions in the opposite direction so that the ions separate according to the physicochemical property value as a result of the first and second forces; and then pulsing or driving ions out of one or more regions of the ion trap.

A method is disclosed comprising: trapping ions in an ion trap (40); applying a first force on the ions within the ion trap in a first direction, said force having a magnitude that is dependent upon the value of a physicochemical property of the ions; applying a second force on these ions in the opposite direction so that the ions separate according to the physicochemical property value as a result of the first and second forces; and then pulsing or driving ions out of one or more regions of the ion trap.

One mode of a chromatograph mass spectrometer according to the present invention includes: a measurement unit (1) that includes a chromatograph unit (1A) and a mass spectrometry unit (1B) capable of performing MS/MS analysis, and collects chromatograph mass spectrometry data having three dimensions of time, m/z, and a signal intensity by repeatedly performing the MS/MS analysis by data independent analysis in the mass spectrometry unit on a sample containing a compound separated by the chromatograph unit; a component detection unit (42) that detects a compound and a component corresponding to a partial structure of the compound by obtaining MS/MS spectra of a bar graph presentation based on chromatograph mass spectrometry data over a predetermined m/z range for a target sample, estimating precursor ion peaks in each of the MS/MS spectra, and selecting peaks based on a predetermined standard regarding an m/z direction in each of the MS/MS spectra and a predetermined standard regarding a time direction for peaks that can be considered to be identical or an identical group on the MS/MS spectra; a narrowing unit (43, 44) that narrows down components to be analyzed by performing screening using prior information on the detected component; and a composition estimation unit (45) that, by using m/z information corresponding to a narrowed down component, estimate a composition or a chemical formula of the component.

A sample analysis system having a continuous beam ion mobility filter incorporates an ion removal mechanism for removing residual ions from the ion mobility filter to reduce cross-talk. A sample to be analyzed by the sample analysis system can be entered into the continuous beam ion mobility filter, which filters the ions of the sample and passes the filtered group of ions to a detector or a mass analyzer (e.g., via an ion optics assembly disposed between the mass analyzer and the ion mobility filter), where some or all of the ions in the group are detected. The ion removal mechanism then removes all or a substantial portion of the residual ions from the ion mobility filter that are left over from the first filtered group before a second filtered group is passed through. In some aspects, the ion removal mechanism can be operated concurrent with an ion removal mechanism for removing residual ions from an ion optics assembly.

A mass spectrometer device comprising an ion mobility separation device and a mass spectrometer that are coupled together. In order to achieve high efficiency, high throughput, and high sensitivity, the mass spectrometer is provided with: a first flow passageway 24 through which ions from an ion source 1 are introduced into the mass spectrometer 11 by passing through an ion mobility separation unit 2; a second flow passageway 21 through which the ions from the ion source are introduced into the mass spectrometer without passing through the ion mobility separation unit; and a switch means, such as shield units 4, 5, for switching between the first flow passageway 24 and the second flow passageway 21.