The present invention uses an AC voltage instead of DC voltage on an ion gate to filter/selectively pass ions. The ions that pass through the AC ion gate can be further separated in a spectrometric instrument. An ion mobility spectrometer using the AC ion gate can achieve better gating performance. For a time of flight ion mobility spectrometer with an AC ion gate, a narrow pulse of selected ions can be passed into a drift tube where they are separated based on their low field ion mobility. Moreover, when the AC voltage at the AC ion gate has a waveform as used for differential ion mobility spectrometry, the time of flight ion mobility spectrometer is converted into a two dimensional separation spectrometer, where ions are first separated based on their high field ion mobility and then further separated based on their low field ion mobility.

A particle charger is provided with: a filter (28) partitioning the inside of a housing (20) into a first space (29) and second space (30); a particle introducer (22) for introducing a particle into the first space; a gas ion supplier (10) for supplying the first space with a gas ion; a potential gradient creator (26, 27, 31) for creating a potential difference within the housing so as to make the gas ion and a charged particle resulting from a contact of the aforementioned particle with the gas ion move toward the second space; an AC voltage supplier (32, 33) for applying AC voltages having a phase difference to the neighboring electrodes (28a, b) included in the filter; a controller (35) for performing a control for applying, to the plurality of electrodes, predetermined voltages so as to allow the charged particle to pass through a gap between the electrodes while trapping the gas ion by the electrodes; and a charged particle extractor (23, 25, 34) for extracting the charged particle admitted to the second space to the outside of the housing. By this configuration, the occurrence frequency of the multi-charging is suppressed.

A method of analysis using mass spectrometry and/or ion mobility spectrometry is disclosed comprising: (a) using a first device to generate smoke, aerosol or vapour from a target in vitro or ex vivo cell population; (b) mass analysing and/or ion mobility analysing said smoke, aerosol or vapour, or ions derived therefrom, in order to obtain spectrometric data; and (c) analysing said spectrometric data in order to identify and/or characterise said target cell population or one or more cells and/or compounds present in said target cell population.

Disclosed embodiments include a time-of-flight mass spectrometer with a straight ion optical axis comprising: an ion gate is electrically insolated electrode on which applied voltages to reject/pass ions through ion gate, entrance module and exit module set in focus/mirror modes, and create ion optical image on image plane located in field view aperture, electrostatic object lens, entrance module in focus mode and, transport electrostatic lens, exit module in focus mode and projection lens focused and map ions from image plane of field view aperture to image plane of ion detector, projection lens configured to form ion optical image of sample holder on image plane of ion detector and ion optical components with corrected geometrical, chromatic and timed aberrations configured to compensate time arriving disturbance in image plane of ion detector and improve mass and spatial resolution of image on image plane of ion detector.

The invention discloses a networking mass analysis method and device, and belongs to the field of mass spectrometer and ion mass analysis. The device comprises an ion source, an ion transporter, an ion deflector and multiple mass analyzers, wherein the ion transporter is connected with one of the multiple mass analyzers, the multiple mass analyzers are connected with the ion deflector respectively, the ion source produces the ions to be detected, the ions to be detected enter any of the mass analyzers connected with the ion deflector via the ion transporter for mass analysis, and the remaining ions to be detected are transported to the corresponding mass analyzers via the ion deflector for mass analysis. The invention can improve the mass analysis duty ratio of continuous ion sources and obtain more mass-to-charge ratio information of ion beams within each time slot.

A gas analyzing device including at least one ion mobility spectrometer is provided. The gas analyzing device also includes an energy supply device interacting with a reaction chamber of the ion mobility spectrometer which is designed to manipulate the density of free reactant ions in the reaction chamber by supplying energy. A method for analyzing gas by means of a gas analyzing device according to the ion mobility spectrometry is also provided.

An improved multi-pass time-of-flight or electrostatic trap mass spectrometer (70) with an orthogonal accelerator, applicable to mirror based multi-reflecting (MR) or multi-turn (MT) analyzers. The orthogonal accelerator (64) is tilted and after first ion reflection or turn the ion packets are back deflected with a compensated deflector (40) by the same angle α to compensate for the time-front steering and for the chromatic angular spreads. The focal distance of deflector (40) is control by Matsuda plates or other means for producing quadrupolar field in the deflector. Interference with the detector rim is improved with dual deflector (68). The proposed improvements allow substantial extension of flight path and number of ion turns or reflections. The problems of analyzer angular misalignments by tilting of ion mirror (71) is compensated by electrical adjustments of ion beam (63) energy and deflection angles in deflectors (40) and (68).

Method and systems for managing clear-down are provided. The method can include generating a clear-down trigger associated with an ion mobility spectrometer and operating the ion mobility spectrometer in fast clear-down mode in response to the clear-down trigger. Methods and systems can further provide that where the ion mobility spectrometer operates in fast-switching mode, the ion mobility spectrometer alternating a plurality of times between operation according to a positive ion mode and operation according to a negative ion mode, and further operating according to the positive ion mode for less than about 1 second before switching to the operation according to the negative ion mode, and operating according to the negative ion mode for less than about 1 second before switching to the operation according to the positive ion mode.

A lead-in electrode, of an orthogonal acceleration time-of-flight mass spectrometer, includes: a main body having an ion passing part and a first member including a main-body accommodating part that is a through-hole. One surface of the first member includes an extension part to define a position of one surface of the main body. A second member is attached to the first member. A through-hole is provided at a position of the second member. One surface of the second member includes a first area in contact with a surface opposite to the one surface of the first member and a second area located inside with respect to the first area. The second area is formed lower than a surface, of the first area, in contact with the surface opposite to the one surface. A lead-in electrode elastic member is disposed, in the second area, between the first member and second members.

An apparatus for ion manipulation having improved duty cycle includes first and second separation regions separated by a switch that alternates between guiding ions to each of the separation regions. The separation regions separate the ions based on mobility over respective time periods that at least partially overlap. The apparatus can additionally or alternatively include a pre-separation region that filters ions prior to accumulating ions, thus allowing an accumulation region to accumulate for a longer time period. The apparatus can additionally or alternatively include a plurality of gates along the separation region(s) to simultaneously filter a plurality of ion packets sequentially released into the separation region(s). Methods for ion manipulation having improved duty cycle involve separating ions on two separation regions over first and second time periods that at least partially overlap, pre-filtering ions prior to accumulation and separation, and/or simultaneously filtering a plurality of ions packets are also provided.