Electric ion dispersion as a new type of mass spectrometer

Authors

Michael R. Lindstrom, The University of Texas Rio Grande ValleyFollow
Iain Moyles
Kevin Ryczko

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2017

Abstract

At the 2014 Fields-MPrime Industrial Problem Solving Workshop, PerkinElmer presented a design problem for mass spectrometry. Traditionally, mass spectrometry is done via three methods: using magnetic fields to deflect charged particles whereby different masses bend differently; using a time-of-flight procedure where particles of different mass arrive at different times at a target; and using an electric quadrupole that filters out all masses except for one very narrow band. The challenge posed in the problem was to come up with a new design for mass spectrometry that did not involve magnetic fields and where mass fractions could be measured in an entire sample on a continuous basis. We found that by sending the sample particles down a channel of line charges oscillations would be induced with a spatial wavelength being mass dependent thereby allowing different masses to be separated spatially and potentially detected on a continuous basis, without the use of magnetic fields. In this paper, we present the analysis of our design and illustrate how this principle could be used for mass spectrometry.

Comments

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

Recommended Citation

Lindstrom, M., Moyles, I. & Ryczko, K. Electric ion dispersion as a new type of mass spectrometer. Mathematics-in-Industry Case Studies 7, 1 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40929-016-0005-4

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Publication Title

Mathematics-in-Industry Case Studies

DOI

10.1186/s40929-016-0005-4