Simulation of rarefied gas flows in atmospheric pressure interfaces for mass spectrometry systems.

The understanding of the gas dynamics of the atmospheric pressure interface is very important for the development of mass spectrometry systems with high sensitivity. While the gas flows at high pressure (>1 Torr) and low pressure (<10(-3) Torr) stages are relatively well understood and could be modeled using continuum and molecular flows, respectively, the theoretical modeling or numeric simulation of gas flow through the transition pressure stage (1 to 10(-3) Torr) remains challenging. In this study, we used the direct simulation Monte Carlo (DMSC) method to develop the gas dynamic simulations for the continuous and discontinuous atmospheric pressure interfaces (API), with different focuses on the ion transfer by gas flows through a skimmer or directly from the atmospheric pressure to a vacuum stage, respectively. The impacts by the skimmer location in the continuous API and the temporal evolvement of the gas flow with a discontinuous API were characterized, which provide a solid base for the instrument design and performance improvement.