Sequencing peptides without scanning the reflectron: post-source decay with a curved-field reflectron time-of-flight mass spectrometer.

A time-of-flight mass spectrometer has been developed using a reflectron in which the voltages placed on the lens elements correspond to a function describing the arc of a circle. This curved-field reflectron enables acquisition of focused product-ion mass spectra at a single reflectron voltage. In this paper, we present results from this instrument for the amino acid sequencing of several peptides and describe the method of mass calibration.