Development of a tabletop time-of-flight mass spectrometer with an ion attachment ionization technique.

We report a new type of mass spectrometry based on a time-of-flight mass spectrometer combined with an ion attachment ionization technique (IA-TOF). In contrast to electron ionization mass spectra, IA-TOF mass spectra are not complicated by peaks due to fragmentation of the molecular ion; the adduct ion formed in IA does not fragment. We developed a tabletop IA-TOF system and evaluated its performance by analyzing specimens originally in the gas, liquid, and solid phases. We obtained fragment-free spectra covering a mass range up to m/z 3400 with a mass resolution of about 4700. Our IA-TOF system realizes accurate and versatile real-time mass spectrometry. Copyright (c) 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.