A pulsed triple ionization source for sequential ion/ion reactions in an electrodynamic ion trap.

A pulsed triple ionization source, using a common atmosphere/vacuum interface and ion path, has been developed to generate different types of ions for sequential ion/ion reaction experiments in a linear ion trap-based tandem mass spectrometer. The triple ionization source typically consists of a nano-electrospray emitter for analyte formation and two other emitters, an electrospray emitter and an atmospheric pressure chemical ionization emitter or a second nano-electrospray emitter for formation of the two different reagent ions. The three emitters are positioned in a parallel fashion close to the sampling orifice of the tandem mass spectrometer. The potentials applied to each emitter are sequentially pulsed so that desired ions are generated separately in time and space. Sequential ion/ion reactions take place after analyte ions of interest and different set of reagent ions are sequentially injected into a linear ion trap, where axial trapping is effected by applying an auxiliary radio frequency voltage to the end lenses. The pulsed triple ionization source allows independent optimization of each emitter and can be readily coupled to any atmospheric pressure ionization interface with no need for instrument modifications, provided the potentials required to transmit the ion polarity of interest can be synchronized with the emitter potentials. Several sequential ion/ion reactions examples are demonstrated to illustrate the analytical usefulness of the triple ionization source in the study of gas-phase ion/ion chemistry.