TY - JOUR

T1 - Printed circuit board based segmented quadrupole ion guide

AU - Allers, Maria

AU - Schlottmann, Florian

AU - Eckermann, Manuel

AU - Zimmermann, Stefan

N1 - Funding information: This work was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft ( DFG, German Research Foundation ) – ZI 1288/8-1 . gs2

PY - 2019/9

Y1 - 2019/9

N2 - Collisional damping quadrupole ion guides have become popular tools in mass spectrometry. In such devices, ions are cooled by collisions with a buffer gas and focused to trajectories near the axis of the ion guide under the influence of a radio frequency (RF) field. This produces a narrow beam of low-energy ions which can be transported with high efficiency. Typically, quadrupole ion guides are constructed of four parallel rods to which RF voltages are applied. To overcome the dampening of the axial velocity component resulting from collisions with neutral gas particles, an additional static axial field is provided by dividing the rods in several segments and applying an electric potential to each segment. However, this method is mechanically complex, requiring a precise alignment of all segments, and several separate connections for the DC und RF voltages to all segments. In this work, we present a simple and low-cost segmented quadrupole ion guide design that is based on standard printed circuit boards (PCB) including both the segmented electrodes as well as the signal distribution network. Furthermore, we present simulations of the ion movement inside this PCB quadrupole and experimentally evaluate the ion transfer. Our measurements show that the segmented PCB quadrupole with planar electrodes reaches similar ion transmissions in comparison with conventional quadrupole ion guides built from segmented circular rods.

AB - Collisional damping quadrupole ion guides have become popular tools in mass spectrometry. In such devices, ions are cooled by collisions with a buffer gas and focused to trajectories near the axis of the ion guide under the influence of a radio frequency (RF) field. This produces a narrow beam of low-energy ions which can be transported with high efficiency. Typically, quadrupole ion guides are constructed of four parallel rods to which RF voltages are applied. To overcome the dampening of the axial velocity component resulting from collisions with neutral gas particles, an additional static axial field is provided by dividing the rods in several segments and applying an electric potential to each segment. However, this method is mechanically complex, requiring a precise alignment of all segments, and several separate connections for the DC und RF voltages to all segments. In this work, we present a simple and low-cost segmented quadrupole ion guide design that is based on standard printed circuit boards (PCB) including both the segmented electrodes as well as the signal distribution network. Furthermore, we present simulations of the ion movement inside this PCB quadrupole and experimentally evaluate the ion transfer. Our measurements show that the segmented PCB quadrupole with planar electrodes reaches similar ion transmissions in comparison with conventional quadrupole ion guides built from segmented circular rods.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85066805717&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.15488/10985

DO - 10.15488/10985

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85066805717

VL - 443

SP - 32

EP - 40

JO - International Journal of Mass Spectrometry

JF - International Journal of Mass Spectrometry

SN - 1387-3806

ER -