Stimulated Motion Suppression (STMS): a New Approach to Break the Resolution Barrier for Ion Trap Mass Spectrometry

Liquid-Phase Ion Trap for Ion Trapping, Transfer, and Sequential Ejection in Solutions

In this study, a new method/mechanism to manipulate ions in solution was developed, based on which liquid-phase ion trap was built. In this liquid-phase ion trap, ion manipulations conventionally performed in a quadrupole ion trap or in a trapped ion mobility spectrometer placed in a vacuum were achieved in solutions. Through theoretical derivation and numerical simulation, it is found that ions have different motional characteristics than those in vacuum. Instead of a radio frequency quadrupole electric field, tunable DC electric fields together with a constant liquid flow were applied to control ion motions in solution. Different ions could be trapped and focused in a potential well, and ion densities could be increased by over 100-fold. By adjusting the DC electric field of the potential well, trapped ions could be transferred into another trapping region or sequentially released for detection. Ions released from the liquid-phase ion trap were then detected by a mass spectrometer interfaced with an electrospray ionization source. Since the ion manipulation mechanism in solution is different and complementary to that in vacuum, the use of a liquid-phase ion trap could also boost detection sensitivity and the mixture analysis capability of a mass spectrometer.

Ion-Neutral Collision Effects on Ion Trapping and Pseudopotential Depth in Ion Trap Mass Spectrometry

Ion trapping using radio-frequency (RF) devices has been widely used in mass spectrometry (MS). The pseudopotential well (PW) model enables the use of a pseudopotential depth, D, to evaluate the ion trapping capability of the RF devices in the pure electric field. It remains unclear how gas pressures regulate the ion trapping and D. Here, we calculated the D of a linear ion trap (LIT) from 1 mTorr to 2 Torr, a pressure range critical for the operation of the RF devices, through ion cloud simulations. Compared with the case of pure electric field, ion-neutral collision effects at pressures of 1 to 100 mTorr were beneficial for the ion trapping and revealed an optimal trapping depth, D, at around 10 mTorr. We explained the mechanism and validated the observation via ion trapping experiments performed in a home-made dual LIT mass spectrometer. We also showed that near the stability boundary, the RF heating became comparable with the D, which led to the decrement of ion trapping capability characterized by the available D.