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Abstract

The present invention relates generally to time-of-flight mass spectrometers and discloses an improved method and apparatus for analyzing ions using a time-of-flight mass spectrometer. More specifically, a means and method are described for the use of tandem time-of-flight mass spectrometry in conjunction with surface induced dissociation and pulsed ion extraction for fragmentation and analysis of selected sample ions. The concept essential to SID with PIE is that the kinetic energy of product and scattered ions can be correlated with their position at some time T after the collision event, and by using this relationship, one can reduce the distribution of either the kinetic energy of the ions or the arrival times of the ions at some position in the spectrometer. Ions are produced from sample material in an ion source and pulsed into the SID-PIE instrument. The packet of ions thus produced may or may not be mass analyzed before striking the SID surface. Ions of interest are accelerated to a kinetic energy appropriate to the desired fragmentation and then allowed to strike the SID surface.

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First Claim