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 circuit and method for providing high-voltage radio-frequency (RF) energy to an instrument at multiple frequencies includes a plurality of inputs each configured to receive an RF voltage signal oscillating at a corresponding frequency, and a step-up circuit for generating magnified RF voltage signals based on the received RF voltage signals. The step-up circuit includes an LC network operable to isolate the RF voltage signals at the plurality inputs from one another while preserving a voltage magnification from each input to a common output at each of the corresponding frequencies.

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.

The invention relates to hybrid IMS/MS systems and provides hybrid IMS/MS system comprising an RF funnel, an ion mobility analyzer and a mass analyzer wherein the RF funnel is arranged non-collinearly to the ion mobility analyzer, preferably a TIMS analyzer (TIMS=trapped ion mobility spectrometry).

An electrostatic linear ion trap has first and second axially aligned ion minors separated by a charge detection cylinder axially aligned with each ion minor. Electric fields are selectively established within the first and second ion minors in a manner which causes an ion in the trap to oscillate back and forth through the charge detection cylinder between the first and second ion minors with a duty cycle, corresponding to a ratio of time spent by the ion passing through the charge detection cylinder and total time spent traversing a combination of the first and second ion mirrors and the charge detection cylinder during one complete oscillation cycle, of approximately 50%.

The invention provides a mass spectrometer, an ion optical device, and a method for ion manipulation in a mass spectrometer. The mass spectrometer includes a mass analyzer; and an ion guiding device, including two electrode arrays positioned in parallel with each other, each electrode array including at least two ring electrodes concentrically disposed or at least three linear electrode assemblies having a radial distribution; and a power supply means, configured to apply a voltage on at least a part of the ring electrodes, to form a radio-frequency electric field and a DC electric field. By means of the radio-frequency electric field and the DC electric field, ions are allowed to be stored in a region between the two arrays, and controlled to be sequentially released along a radial direction according to a preset mass-to-charge ratio requirement, then exit the ion guiding device and enter the mass analyzer for mass analysis.

A traveling wave multipole comprising two or more pairs of segmented electrodes arranged around a central axis; and a voltage supply. The voltage supply configured to supply the segments of each pair of electrodes with a different RF and DC potential; and match RF and DC potentials with a location of an ion of target m/z moving through the traveling wave multipole such that as the ion travels along the multipole the ion experiences the same RF and DC potentials while another ion of a second target m/z concurrently experiences a different RF and DC potentials at another location within the traveling wave multipole.

An apparatus includes a first pair of opposing electrode arrangements that confine ions between them in a portion of a confinement volume inwardly laterally in a first confinement direction with respect to a longitudinal ion propagation direction, each opposing electrode arrangement including an arrangement of RF electrodes situated to receive an unbiased RF voltage having an alternate phase between adjacent RF electrodes of the arrangement of RF electrodes so as to provide the confining of ions between the first pair of opposing electrode arrangements, and a second pair of opposing electrode arrangements that confine the ions between the second pair in the confinement volume inwardly laterally in a second confinement direction that complements the first confinement direction, each opposing electrode arrangement of the second pair including an arrangement of RF electrodes that receive an unbiased RF voltage having an alternate phase between adjacent RF electrodes.

A method of ion mobility and/or mass spectrometry is disclosed in which the ion mobility and/or mass to charge ratio of an ion is determined using an algorithm or relationship that relates the transit time or average ion velocity of the ion through an ion separation device in which one or more time-varying electric field is used to separate ions passing therethrough to one or more parameters for the device, the mass to charge ratio of the ion and the ion mobility of the ion.

An ion shuttling system includes a plurality of first electrodes connected to a system configured to selectively provide an ion movement control voltage to each electrode of the plurality of first electrodes, a voltage source configured to provide one or more compensation voltages, a plurality of compensation electrodes comprising a plurality of compensation electrode pairs, where each compensation electrode pair of the plurality of compensation electrode pairs is associated with one or more different first electrodes of the plurality of first electrodes, and a plurality of switches, where each switch of the plurality of switches is connected at a respective first node to a compensation electrode of the plurality of compensation electrodes and is configured to selectively connect the respective compensation electrode to the voltage source.