Design and performance evaluation of a linear ion trap mass analyzer featuring half round rod electrodes.

A novel linear ion trap mass analyzer featuring half round rod electrodes (HreLIT) has been built. It is mainly composed of two pairs of stainless steel electrodes which have a cross-section of half round rod and a pair of end electrodes. The HreLIT has a simple structure and so it could be assembled by hand with relatively high mechanical accuracy. The external dimension of HreLIT is 50 mm × 29.5 mm × 28 mm (length × width × height) and its internal volume is about 3.8 cm(3). A home-made HreLIT mass spectrometer with three-stage vacuum system was built and the performance of HreLIT was characterized using reserpine solution and PPG standard solution. When the scan rate was 254 u/s, mass peak with FWHM of 0.14 u was achieved for ions with m/z 609, which corresponds to a mass resolution of 4350. The HreLIT was also operated at a low q value of 0.28 to extend its mass range. The experiment result showed a mass range of over 2800 u and the amplitude of radio frequency (rf) signal was only 1560 V (0-p). Three-stage tandem mass spectrometry was successfully performed in the HreLIT, and the collision-induced dissociation (CID) efficiencies of MS(2) (CID of ions with m/z 609) and MS(3) (CID of ions with m/z 448) were 78% and 59%, respectively.